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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


"THE    WIDOW 

IN 
THE     SOUTH 


Reveries 


of  a  Widow/' 


Price,  Cloth,  $1.50;  Paper,  50  cents. 


"\JHiat  some  of  the  leading  newspapers  say  ol 
"Reveries  of  a  Widow." 

For  lively,  engaging  and  brilliant  flashes  of  wit  and  love '  'Rev 
eries  of  a  Widow,"  by  Teresa  Dean,  is  not  bad  reading.  It  is  built 
on  a  plan  not  unlike,  on  the  surface,  that  of  the  famous  reveries 
by  Ik  Marvel,  although  in  reality  they  are  totally  unlike.  They 
are  supposed  to  be  toe  reflections  of  a  lively  and  slangy  young 
widow,  who  will  not  marry  her  "dear  Jack,"  although  she  un 
consciously  loves  him,  because  he  is  "too  easily  managed." 

— Boston  Herald. 

In  *4  Reveries  of  a  Widow/'  the  author,  Teresa  Dean,  has 
written  the  story  of  a  coquette  who  loves  and  yet  refuses  to 
acknowledge  that  passion  until  it  is  too  late.  It  is  one  of  those 
books  that  may  best  be  described  as  "clever." 

— Troy  Daily  Times. 

These  "  Reveries"  of  a  widow  with  two  "  pasts  " — one  dead, 
the  other  a  living  one — are  a  revealing  of  feminine  psychology, 
and  abound  in  feminine  philosophy  and  the  wisdom  that  is  the 
fruit  of  experience.  The  book  might  almost  be  called  a  study  ii» 
sex  differentiation  from  a  society  point  of  view. 

Detroit  Free  Press. 


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receipt  of  price,  by 

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"The  Widow" 
In    The    South 


A  Series  of  Letters 

BY 

TERESA     DEAN 

THE  WIDOW,"  of  Town  Topics  Editorial  Staff 

AUTHOR     OF 

"REVERIES  OF  A    WIDOW? 
"  WHITE  CITY  CHIPS,"  ETC. 


19O3 

The  Smart  Set  Publishing  Co, 

NEW  YORK        LONDON 


LIBRA] 

ITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHTED 
1903,  by 
TOWN  TOPICS 
PUBLISHING  CO. 


COPYRIGHTED 
1903,  by 
THE  SMART  SET 
PUBLISHING  CO. 


Be   Honest — Fear   Xone,    Favor    Xone." 


TOWN  TOPICS  SERIES 

COPYRIGHT  BOOKS 

In  Attractive  Paper  Binding,  Covers  Illustrated 
from  Original  Drawings  in  Five  Colors 

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FRONTISPIECES    IN    COLORS 


i— An  Unspeakable  Siren, 
2— Santa  Teresa, 
4— The  Wrong  Man, 
6— The  Game  of  Gloris, 
8— Six  Months  in  Hades,    - 
9— An  Eclipse  of  Virtue, 
ii — The  Hunt  for  Happiness, 
12 — A  Prince  of  Impudence,    - 
13— Margaret's  Misadventure, 
14— A  Deal  in  Denver,  - 
15 — The  Temptation  of  Curzon,    - 
16— The  Cousin  of  the  King,  - 
17— That  Dreadful  Woman, 
21— A  Witch  of  To-day, 
23— Half  a  Wife, 
24— The  Kiss  that  Killed, 
25— Her  Strange  Experiment, 
26— Fetters  that  Sear,    - 
28— Too  Many  Maidens, 
29— Cupid's  House  Party, 
30— The  Man's  Prerogative, 
33— A  Very  Remarkable  Girl, 
34— The  Sale  of  a  Soul, 
35— Paint  and  Petticoats, 
36— Princess  Enigma, 
37— The  Master  Chivalry, 


John  Gilliat 

William  T.  Whitlock 

Champion  Bissell 

Brunswick  Earlington 

Clarice  Irene  Clingham 

Champion  Bissell 

Anita  V.  Chartres 

Charles  Stokes  Wayne 

A.  S.  Van  Westrum 

Gilmer  McKendree 

Louise  Winter 

Adrian  S.  Van  Westrum 

H.  R.  Vynne 

Charles  Stokes  WTayne 

Louise  Winter 

Percival  Pollard 

H.  R.  Vynne 

-  H.  R.  Vynne 
Edward  S.  Van  Zile 
Justus  Miles  Forman 
Edward  S.  Van  Zile 

L.  H.  Bickford 

C.  M.  S.  McLellan 

John  Gilliat 

Clinton  Ross 

-  Margaret  Lee 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers  and  newsdealers, 
or  sent  direct  by  the  publishers,  upon  receipt 
of  price,  25  cents  (stamps)  each. 


The  Smart  Set  Pub.  Co 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PARE 

PREFACE 9 

I.  Is  THERE  NO  MURDER   EXCEPT  WHEN 

THE  VICTIM  is  ASLEEP  ? 1 1 

II.  SHE  SHOWS  PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  THE 

ERROR  OF  His  WAYS 18 

III.  Aw,  THE  SOUTH   WANTS   is  TO  BE  LET 

ALONE 33 

IV.  THE  NEGRO  A  STUMBLING   BLOCK  AND 

GONZALES  A  MARTYR 52 

V.  SHE  BEGINS  WITH  CHILD    LABOR   AND 

TACKLES  BLIND  TIGERS 69 

VI.  SHE  SUGGESTS  SENDING  COLORED  TROOPS 

TO  THE  PHILIPPINES 81 

VII.  THEORETICALLY  IT  is  WRONG,  PRACTI 
CALLY  IT  HAS  ADVANTAGES 99 

VIII.  IT  MUST  BE  LET  ALONE  TO  WORK  OUT 

ITS  SALVATION in 

IX.  SHE   DEPRECATES   ALL   DISCUSSION   OF 

THE  RACE  PROBLEM.  ...  123 


Preface 


ON  account  of  the  widespread  agitation 
following  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Crum  as 
Collector  of  the  Port  of  Charleston,  I,  early 
this  year,  made  an  extended  trip  through  the 
South,  at  the  request  of  my  Editor-in-Chief. 
In  sending  me  to  look  up  so  delicate  a  mat 
ter  as  the  race  problem  from  the  Southern 
standpoint,  my  only  instruction  was  to  write 
entirely  without  personal  prejudice  the  real 
sentiment  of  the  Southern  people — if  I  could 
get  at  it.  I  was  enabled,  through  being  hos 
pitably  entertained  by  representative  old 
families,  to  make  deductions  as  to  the  true 
situation,  founded  on  indubitable  and  con 
vincing  facts.  That  the  crossed  wires  of 
politics  alone  stand  responsible  for  the  ques 
tions  which  bring  the  negro  into  a  promi 
nence  where  he  must  necessarily  show  fail- 
9 


preface 


ure,  sad  though  it  be,  is  nevertheless  the  case. 
Thus  forced  to  leap  over  the  space  of  his  own 
unfitness,  his  progress  is  backward  rather 
than  forward.  But  for  this  he  might  now, 
after  forty  years  of  freedom,  be  showing  a 
solid  foundation  for  his  true  position — a  re 
sult  which  could  easily  have  been  attained 
had  he  been  left  to  the  kindness  and  guidance 
of  those  who  understood  best  his  capabilities 
and  slow  mental  growth. 

TERESA  DEAN. 
NEW  YORK  CiTY,/#/y,  1903. 


IO 


The  Widow  in  the  South. 


i 

"  IS    THERE   NO   MURDER   EXCEPT     WHEN     THE 
VICTIM    IS    ASLEEP  ?  " 

CHARLESTON,  S.C.,  January  20. 

SOME  day,  when  I  have  time  and  a  map, 
I  am  going  to  study  out  how  it  is  that  I  have 
come  South.  Numberless  times  en  route  I 
have  found  myself  going  backward  when  I 
was  trying  religiously  to  ride  forward.  Never 
have  I  gone  to  sleep  or  neglected  to  look 
out  of  the  window  for  two  hours  without 
discovering  myself  going  in  the  opposite 
direction.  It  began  at  Philadelphia  and  con 
tinued  all  the  way.  It  was  as  bad  as  the  Pei 
Ho  River.  However,  I  arrived  only  two 

hours  late,  which  was  most  remarkable  time, 
ii 


the  zigzag  course  considered.  The  route 
was  over  a  new  branch  of  the  railroad,  where 
sleeping  coaches  and  dining-cars  are  curiosi 
ties  to  the  townspeople,  and  through  a 
country  where  there  are  miles  and  miles  of 
stagnant  water  and  waste-wood.  With  one- 
half  of  the  wood  there  cut  and  decaying, 
New  York  would  not  be  suffering  from  lack 
of  fuel. 

The  first  news  that  greeted  me  as  I  stepped 
from  the  train  was  the  death  of  Editor  Gon- 
zales,  the  victim  of  Lieutenant-Governor 
Tillman.  If  I  were  talking  to  a  South 
Carolinian,  instead  of  writing  to  the  North, 
I  should  be  cautious  about  using  the  word 
"  victim.'*  For  already  it  is  easy  for  me  to 
understand  that  I  might  be  running  up 
against  local  prejudice.  What  would  be 
considered  a  victim  of  the  death  bullet  in 
the  North  might  be  only  just  retribution  in 
the  South.  Very  little  is  said  about  the 
12 


3!n 


shooting,  and  there  seems  no  excitement  in 
Charleston.  Sympathy  is  extended  on  every 
side,  and  there  is  sadness  in  some  faces,  but 
there  is  no  expressed  bitterness  against  the 
man  who  sought  revenge  for  political  injury. 
This  makes  one  feel  as  if  it  was  rather  a 
dangerous  atmosphere  in  which  to  have 
opinions  of  your  own.  Still,  as  opinions 
derogatory  to  character  must  be  backed  by 
keeping  your  hand  in  your  pocket — in 
which  a  revolver  is  supposed  to  be  con 
cealed —  before  the  fatal  bullet  is  fired  at 
you,  The  Widow  may  return  safely. 

Notwithstanding  native  prejudices  and  a 
perceptible  caution  against  "  trying  the  case 
in  the  newspapers,"  the  News  and  Courier 
in  this  morning's  issue  publishes  several 
strong  editorials.  In  one,  headed,  "  The 
Dead  and  the  Living,"  the  writer  concludes 
his  comparisons  by  reference  to  South  Caro 
lina  social  conditions,  saying:  "  In  a  better 
13 


condition  of  society  we  should  be  able  to 
predict  with  certainty  what  the  result  of  the 
trial  of  such  a  case  would  be,  and  we  are 
almost  equally  sure  what  the  outcome  of  the 
trial  of  Mr.  Tillman  will  be  in  the  conditions 
existing  in  this  State.  But  we  must  not  go 
into  a  discussion  of  the  case.  It  will  not  be 
tried  by  the  newspapers,  but  by  the  ordinary 
methods  of  the  law.  If  these  methods  prove 
to  be  insufficient  for  the  protection  of 
society,  so  much  the  worse  for  society. 
There  have  been  so  many  miscarriages  of 
justice,  so  many  farcical  proceedings  in  court, 
so  much  waste  of  dignity  and  legal  learning, 
so  many  violent  men  who  have  escaped  any 
sort  of  punishment,  that  we  do  not  look 
with  much  confidence  to  the  orderly  proce 
dure  of  the  courts  in  a  certain  class  of  cases 
which  are  treated  as  above  the  law.  It 
would  be  for  the  highest  good  of  the  State  if, 
on  account  of  the  deep  damnation  of  his 
taking  off,  the  death  of  Mr.  Gonzales  should 
14 


9!n 


mark  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  the  en 
forcement  of  the  law  against  murder  in  South 
Carolina." 

Another  writer  asks  :  "  What  is  the  limit 
which  a  white  man  must  pass  in  committing 
a  homicide  in  South  Carolina  before  he  en 
dangers  his  own  life  and  liberty  under  the 
law  ?  We  wish  to  keep  the  issue  perfectly 
clear,  and  present  it,  therefore,  as  sharply  as 
we  can.  The  people  generally  of  the  State 
have  waited  and  watched  for  many  years  for 
a  case  of  homicide  in  which  white  men 
should  be  concerned,  and  in  which  the  plea 
of  self-defense  should  be  found  unavailable. 
The  question  suggested  anew  by  the  Colum 
bia  killing  is  simply  whether  a  man  is  cer 
tainly  safe  from  the  penalties  of  the  law  who, 
having  had  a  quarrel  with  another,  meets 
him  with  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  kills 
him  on  that  ground.  This  is  not  an  ex 
aggerated  statement  of  the  issue.  More 
IS 


than  one  manslayer,  we  believe,  has  been 
acquitted  by  juries  in  the  State  on  this  plea. 
It  is  the  plea  that  has  been  put  forward 
already  in  the  Columbia  case.  Its  accept 
ance  as  always  valid  and  sufficient  is,  of 
course,  a  serious  matter.  If  one  man  may 
kill  another  with  assured  impunity  on  such 
ground,  every  man's  life  is  in  the  hands  of 
his  hostile  or  unfriendly  neighbor.  The 
slayer  will  have  only  to  plead  that  his  victim 
had  his  hand  in  his  pocket,  or  that  the  slayer 
was  under  that  impression,  and  feared,  there 
fore,  for  his  own  life,  and  that  plea  will  acquit 
him  and  set  him  free.  Have  we  really 
reached  this  condition  of  things  in  South 
Carolina  ?  The  question,  as  we  have  said, 
concerns  every  man  in  the  State  and  every 
home  in  the  State  very  deeply.  In  many  of 
the  other  States  of  the  nation,  and  in  most  of 
the  civilized  States  of  the  world,  a  homicide 
committed  on  such  a  pretext  would  be  pun 
ished  as  murder  without  fail.  Is  it  a  wholly 
16 


9!n 


safe  crime  in  South  Carolina?  And,  if  so, 
what  is  required  to  make  homicide  a  certainly 
unsafe  crime  for  a  white  man  in  this  State  ? 
Is  there  no  c  murder  '  short  of  killing  a  man 
in  his  sleep  ?  " 


u 

SHE    SHOWS    PRESIDENT     ROOSEVELT     THE 
ERROR    OF    HIS    WAYS. 

CHARLESTON,  S.  C.,  January  27. 
PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  appears  to  be  es 
tablishing  two  flags  again  in  this  united 
country — one  for  the  North  and  another  for 
the  South.  Bitter,  indeed,  is  the  feeling 
here  in  Charleston  over  the  nomination  of  a 
colored  man  as  Collector  of  the  Port.  It  is 
regarded  as  a  personal  indignity  put  upon 
the  white  people.  It  may  be  good  heart, 
broad  mind,  philanthropy,  a  desire  to  ad 
vance  and  encourage  the  colored  race  on  the 
part  of  the  President,  but  it  is  a  matter  that 
should  be  judged  entirely  from  the  stand 
point  of  the  South.  In  this  atmosphere 

every    fair-minded    thinker    will    ask    why 
18 


9Jn  tljt 


should  the  President — the  one  President  for 
both  North  and  South — so  forget  the  pre 
judices  and  traditions  of  the  South  ?  Or 
even,  not  forgetting,  why  should  he  expect 
so  much  more  of  the  South  than  of  the 
North  ?  Is  it  necessary  for  the  advance 
ment  of  one  race  to  place  indignities  upon 
the  other  ?  Would  it  not  be  considered  an 
injury  and  indignity  in  the  North  to  appoint 
a  colored  man  to  an  office  under  which  the 
most  intelligent  white  people  must  serve  ? 

Neither  President  Roosevelt  nor  a  hun 
dred  thousand  United  States  officials  can  re 
move  Southern  traditions  or  America's  social 
line  between  whites  and  blacks.  They  can, 
however,  provoke  tragedies.  It  will  mean 
innumerable  tragedies  to  place  in  official 
positions  colored  people  to  dictate  and  di 
rect,  in  many  instances,  sons  of  proud  old 
Southern  families  whose  wealth  disappeared 
in  the  march  of  war  and  in  the  emancipation 
19 


Clje 


of  the  negro — men  who  are  but  just  now 
beginning  to  see  again  prosperity  for  the 
South.  These  appointments  may  "  en 
courage"  the  black  race,  but  they  discourage 
the  white.  Which  of  the  two  is  to  be  con 
sidered  the  backbone  of  the  South  ?  Never 
yet  has  the  most  enthusiastic  Northern 
"negro  lover*'  been  heard  to  say  that  the 
colored  race  could  get  on  without  the  white 
race  as  backbone.  The  only  ambition  of 
the  best  educated  negro  is  to  have  his  ability 
recognized  by  the  whites.  His  love  for  his 
own  people — his  interest  in  their  advance 
ment,  generally  speaking — has  never  yet 
reached  the  point  where  he  makes  the  sacri 
fice  of  living  among  his  less  favored  brethren 
and  doing  personal  work  in  trying  to  uplift 
them.  On  the  contrary,  the  greatest  "aris 
tocrats  "  and  the  most  exclusive  people — 
from  their  standpoint — in  our  country  are 
the  negroes  with  a  little  education  and  a 

little  white  blood.     They    hold    themselves 
20 


3jn 


most  rigidly  aloof  from  "  common  niggers/' 
as  they  call  them.  This  trait  is  as  noticeable 
in  the  North  as  in  the  South. 

Here  in  Charleston,  as  I  heard  a  lady  re 
mark,  had  the  President  taken  a  big  spoon 
and  stirred  up  the  town,  he  could  not  have 
mixed  things  more.  The  whites  feel  the 
indignity,  the  unkindness ;  the  blacks  feel 
the — their — importance.  Prominent  repre 
sentative  men  and  women  say  :  "  We  cannot 
understand  it !  We  did  everything  we  could 
to  entertain  the  President  when  he  was  here. 
We  showed  him  every  hospitality,  and  he 
seemed  to  appreciate  it.  Now  he  has  done 
this  !  "  The  colored  people,  the  most  sedate 
and  dignified  house-servants — servants  who 
have  been  in  close  and  responsible  positions 
to  families — are  entirely  changed  in  their 
demeanor,  and  in  overheard  snatches  of  con 
versation  say  :  "  Why  not  ?  De  colored 
people  am  jus*  good  as  de  white  people/' 

21 


It  can  be  readily  understood,  under  these 
circumstances,  that  routine  life  in  staid  old 
Charleston  is  a  good  deal  at  sixes  and  sevens. 

Yet  there  are  no  other  people  in  existence 
who  give  affection  to  the  colored  folk  as  do 
these  Southerners — no  greater  affection  goes 
out  of  the  heart  of  the  negro  than  that 
which  he  gives  "  marse  and  missy."  Many 
of  the  cemeteries  show  the  burial  of  the 
family  servants  alongside  of  the  family. 
Yesterday  I  attended  a  tea,  where  I  met 
some  of  the  most  representative  Charleston 
ladies.  One  of  them  came  in  with  a  sad 
face.  She  had  been  at  a  hospital  for  two 
hours,  reading  and  talking  to  someone  who 
was  very  ill.  She  spoke  freely,  but  with 
much  feeling,  of  how  someone  had  kissed 
her  hand  at  parting,  how  sorry  she  was  that 
in  her  absence  this  someone  had  been  sent 
away,  and  how  she  regretted  that  she  must 

leave  town  again.     My  curiosity  was  aroused. 
22 


3!n  tlje 


It  did  not  seem  that  it  was  exactly  a  close 
friend  of  whom  she  was  talking,  yet  it  was 
certainly  someone  dear  to  her.  Imagine  my 
surprise  when  she  turned  to  me  and  explained 
that  an  old  family  servant — a  negro — 
was  lying  critically  ill !  And  so  it  is  gener 
ally.  These  family  servants  refused  to  desert 
their  masters  after  the  war,  and  would  take 
no  pay  for  their  services.  As  families  scat 
tered  and  servants  were  left  to  their  own 
resources  some  of  them  prospered  better 
than  their  masters.  I  heard  a  gentleman 
say  that  not  long  ago  he  ran  across  one  of 
the  old  stock  in  Washington.  It  had  been 
seventeen  years  since  he  had  seen  her.  She 
was  one  of  the  "  aristocratic "  colored — 
moderately  well  off.  He  went  to  her  house. 
He  was  still  "  Marse  Willie"  to  her,  and 
she  would  not  sit  down  in  his  presence,  but 
paid  him  the  same  deference  as  in  the  old 
days. 

This  understanding  between  the  white  and 
23 


black  is,  of  course,  entirely  a  matter  of  the 
training  of  the  family  servant.  The  field 
negro  is  another  being.  He  is  a  savage 
quite  as  much  as  is  the  American  Indian  or 
the  member  of  a  Philippine  tribe.  If  the  ad 
vancement  of  the  race  is  really  a  Presidential 
ambition,  civilization  should  first  be  con 
sidered.  If  the  negroes,  who  are  already  ad 
vanced  to  the  point  of  recognition  from  the 
President,  are  not  interested  in  their  own 
people  enough  to  try  to  better  their  condition, 
then  something  should  be  done  by  the* 
Government.  All  through  Virginia,  South 
Carolina  and  the  South  generally  are  negroes 
who  recognize  neither  government  nor  law. 
Only  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  from  Charleston 
these  black  savages  are  living.  They  recog 
nize  no  authority  nor  power  but  the  bullet  or 
bonfire.  Murders  among  themselves  are  so 
usual  and  so  expected  that  though  sometimes 
they  are  reported,  they  are  oftener  not.  No 

white  woman  is  safe  who  lives   near.     They 
24 


3|tt  tljc 


are  beings  so  much  lower  than  Indians  in 
their  savagery  that  there  is  no  comparison. 
They  have  an  unintelligible  language  called 
"  gullah  '  — a  mixture  of  the  African  and 
English.  They  kill,  murder  and  practice 
voodooism,  and  yet  have  had  over  thirty 
years  in  which  to  become  respectable  Ameri 
can  citizens.  As  field-hands  under  white 
overseers  their  savage  instincts  were  not  al 
lowed  to  develop.  To-day  the  only  way 
they  can  be  controlled  by  the  authorities  is 
through  the  methods  that  are  so  often  criti 
cised  by  those  who  do  not  understand  con 
ditions.  Surely,  the  advancement  and  en 
couragement  of  the  negro  in  the  South  mean 
something  more  than  appointing  to  political 
position  one  or  more  who  have  advanced  be 
yond  primeval  ignorance.  Under  these  con 
ditions  such  appointments  mean  dire  disaster 
and  encouragement  to  crime. 

The  offices  are  positions  of  honor  and  re- 

25 


sponsibility,  and  are  sought  by  white  men. 
Should  the  colored  man  be  considered  first  ? 
Would  he  be  chosen  from  a  standpoint  of 
justice  or  ability,  independent  of  this  distress 
ing  political  and  philanthropic  idea  ?  And 
is  it  just  or  philanthropic  to  slap  a  white 
man  in  the  face  to  carry  a  point  ?  The 
world  over,  the  white  man  has  the  right  of 
way.  When  it  is  not  conceded,  he  fights  for 
it.  Charleston  has  many  men  much  better 
fitted  by  education  and  courtesy  for  the  po 
sition  of  Collector  of  the  Port  than  this 
colored  man.  It  has  been  the  custom  on  the 
arrival  of  distinguished  travelers  for  the 
Mayor  of  Charleston  to  accept  the  hospitality 
of  the  launch  used  by  this  Government  officer 
to  go  out  to  meet  them.  It  would  be  impos 
sible  and  against  every  inborn  instinct  of  the 
Southern  nature  to  accept  this  social  courtesy 
from  a  colored  man.  We  would  not  do  it  in 
the  North. 


26 


9!n  tyt 


There  is  no  argument  that  can  ever  do 
away  with  the  racial  prejudice.  These  quiet 
Southern  men  and  women  understand  better 
than  anyone  else  the  characteristics  of  the 
colored  people.  They  tell  you  in  detail 
how  the  educated  negroes — educated  only 
because  they  have  risen  above  others  of 
the  race — claim  that  they  do  not  aspire  to 
social  equality,  yet  prove  continually  it  is 
their  only  ambition.  The  negro  knows  and 
admits  that  social  equality  anywhere  in  the 
United  States  is  utterly  impossible.  He 
makes  the  disclaimer,  however,  a  telling 
point  in  his  claim  to  recognition  from  other 
standpoints,  winning  friends  by  this  intel 
ligent  manifestation  of  common  sense  in  rec 
ognizing  his  own  inequality.  Yet,  when  was 
a  negro  ever  known  to  refuse  social  recogni 
tion  ?  If  this  man  of  color,  this  Dr.  Crum, 
whom  the  President  has  nominated  for  an 
office  which  involves  many  courtesies  that 

tread  upon  social  lines,  be   honest  in  his  as- 

27 


sertion  that  he  does  not  aspire  to  social  recog 
nition,  he  would  decline  the  office  instead  of 
fighting  for  it.  He  knows  full  well,  with 
this  feeling  so  rampant  here  in  the  South, 
that  to  decline  the  office  on  the  ground  that 
he  would  be  placed  in  power  over  some  of  the 
best  white  blood  in  the  South — that  this 
would  cause  dissension  and  bitterness,  and 
that  he  would  be  harming  his  own  people 
instead  of  advancing  them — would  mean  for 
him,  personally,  in  all  probability,  more  than 
any  President  of  the  United  States  can  offer 
him.  But  no.  It  is  social  recognition  these 
colored  people  want.  They  want  it  from  the 
great  and  mighty  white.  It  is  their  only 
ambition.  These  people  say,  "  Look  at 
Booker  T.  Washington.  He  asserts  intel 
ligently  and  with  dignified  humility  that  he 
does  not  claim  social  equality."  If  this  be 
true,  the  Southern  people  ask,  why,  then,  did 
he  not  place  himself  on  record  with  white 
people,  and  as  an  example  to  the  colored 
28 


people,  by  refusing  to  lunch  with  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States?  No.  He  pre 
ferred  to  have  the  whole  South  feel  that  it 
had  been  insulted,  and  to  have  the  President 
himself  placed  in  an  equivocal  position.  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  to  refuse  social  recog^ 
nition.  Yet  a  well-born  white  man,  under 
circumstances  much  less  serious,  and  affecting 
only  persons  instead  of  the  whole  country, 
would  not  have  hesitated  to  say :  "Mr. 
President,  I  thank  you,  but  I  cannot  accept 
your  kind  invitation." 

As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  we  cannot 
change  nor  do  away  with  the  traditions  of  the 
South.  A  drop  of  colored  blood  makes  a  negro. 
It  makes  a  negro  in  the  North  as  well  as  the 
South.  It  may  be  right ;  it  may  be  wrong  ; 
it  may,  many  times,  be  heartrending  ;  but 
the  social  taint  is  there.  It  is  this  the  col 
ored  man  feels  ;  but  not  grandly  and  nobly 
and  with  ambitions  to  help  his  own  people 

to  independent  conditions  of  their  own.     As 
29 


his  color  grows  lighter  through  intermarriage 
his  hatred  of  his  blacker  brother  becomes 
intense.  The  most  "  exclusive  "  society  in 
Charleston,  the  most  rigid  in  their  ideas  of 
exclusiveness,  are  these  bleached  negroes. 
They  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
c<  niggers  "  save  as  servants.  They  ape  the 
white  people,  but,  unlike  the  whites,  they 
hate  the  blacks.  They  have  no  sympathy 
for  the  race,  and  are  absolutely  cruel,  at 
times,  in  their  treatment  of  it.  They  recog 
nize  no  heart,  no  soul,  no  humanity  under 
the  black  skin.  They  feel  that  it  is  the  col 
ored  skin  that  is  keeping  them  where  they 
are,  though  now  they  have  some  education 
and  money.  Their  only  opportunity  to 
show  their  distinction  is  to  hold  themselves 
above  those  of  darker  skin. 

To  Dr.  Crum   personally  no  one  objects. 
He   is  respected    as   a   man   of  color  and  of 
mediocre    education.     He   is    not,    by    any 
30 


means,  the  best  man  for  the  place,  even 
though  color  were  not  an  objection.  In  fact, 
a  white  man  of  no  greater  ability  would  not 
be  considered  for  a  moment.  These  things 
make  the  action  of  the  President  seem  all 
the  more  an  indignity  to  the  Charlestonians. 
They  really  and  honestly  cannot  understand 
why  President  Roosevelt  should  do  such  a 
thing.  They  feel,  also,  that  he  never  would 
have  done  so  could  he  have  viewed  the  situ 
ation  from  the  Southern  standpoint,  or  had 
he  realized  how  much  harm  it  will  do,  how 
much  of  a  setback  it  will  give  the  much  dis 
cussed  colored  question.  They  speak  fre 
quently  of  the  President  when  he  was  here, 
going  out  of  his  way  to  shake  hands  with  a 
line  of  colored  servants  that  was  drawn  up  at 
the  back  of  a  house  where  he  had  been  en 
tertained.  They  ask,  would  a  guest  of  a 
Northern  house  be  doing  the  correct  thing  to 
shake  hands  with  the  servants  in  departing  ? 


President  Roosevelt,  in  his  good-hearted- 
ness,  broad-mindedness,  or  philanthropy,  or 
campaign  play,  or  whatever  it  is,  has  cer 
tainly  pulled  down  a  hornet's  nest.  Some 
good  friend  should  talk  white  people  to  him, 
instead  of  colored  people.  White  people 
can  bolt  and  never  forgive.  Colored  people 
will  follow  on  anyway,  and  are  much  better 
at  doing  what  they  are  told  to  do. 

Tragedies  should  be  averted,  not  invited. 


gin 


in 

ALL    THE  SOUTH  WANTS    IS  TO  BE  LET  ALONE. 

CHARLESTON,  S.  C.,  February  2. 
ONE  thing  must  be  admitted :  the  people 
of  the  North  do  not  understand  the  people 
of  the  South.  Northerners  suppose  that  to 
return  the  Confederate  flags,  to  raise  monu 
ments  on  victorious  battlefields  to  Southern 
generals  or  to  erect  statues  of  them  in  Wash 
ington  conciliates,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  to 
the  Southerners  a  Northern  willingness  to 
forget  past  differences.  This  is  a  mistake. 
To  the  Southerner  it  means  never  letting 
them  forget — never  letting  them  alone. 
They  do  not  want  to  be  reminded.  Fur 
thermore,  they  do  not  care  a  fillip  for  this 
kind  of  forgiveness  on  the  part  of  the  North. 
All  they  ask  is  to  be  let  alone. 
3  33 


"  We  were  thoroughly  thrashed — thor 
oughly  conquered — awfully,  awfully  pun 
ished  ;  we  want  to  be  good  American  citi 
zens  ;  we  would  not  go  back  to  slavery  if 
we  could  ;  we  did  not  bring  slavery  into  the 
States ;  but  we  do  want  to  be  let  alone. 
We  want  to  work  out  our  own  salvation," 
said  a  representative,  successful,  prominent 
man  of  the  South  to  me  the  other  day. 
"  We  will  not  submit  to  negro  rule,  and  if 
negroes  are  placed  in  power  then  the  white 
people  will  get  away." 

He  talked  honestly,  earnestly,  without 
prejudice,  without  personal  or  political  am 
bitions.  His  words  were  but  the  echo  of 
the  sentiments  of  all  true  Southerners, 
though  many  are  more  controlled  by  pre 
judice  and  the  old  feeling  of  a  disunited 
country. 

Covering  battlefields  of  the — I  was  going 
34 


to  say  Rebellion,  but  writing  from  this  hos 
pitable  atmosphere  I  must  not  say  Rebel 
lion — covering  battlefields  of  the  Civil  War 
with  monuments  to  General  Robert  E.  Lee, 
or  erecting  statues  of  him  in  Washington — 
even  by  the  side  of  George  Washington 
himself — by  the  Northern  people,  would 
not  appease,  please  or  conciliate  the  South 
erners  in  the  way  the  Northerners  imagine. 
It  would  be,  to  a  majority,  only  another  way 
of  cramming  the  old  victory  down  Southern 
throats  again  and  refusing  to  allow  them  to 
forget,  and  by  them  it  would  be  regarded  as 
impertinent,  vulgar  and  patronizing  conde 
scension  on  our  part. 

I  am  not  saying  this  in  criticism.  Far 
from  it.  I  think  the  Southerners — every 
side  considered — are  quite  right.  We  may 
have  "  thrashed  "  them  and  "  conquered  " 
them  ;  they  may  fully  recognize  our  victory, 
but  we  never  took  from  them  their  spirit 
35 


nor  their  pride.  They  recognize  our  fight 
ing  strength,  but  they  do  not  recognize  our 
right  to  offer  and  force  conspicuous  olive 
branches  before  the  Southerners  want  them 
and  are  ready  to  receive  them.  They  are, 
without  question,  over-sensitive,  but  they 
are  natural,  and,  at  worst  or  best,  only  hu 
man.  They  are  altogether  too  refined  to 
put  it  to  us  bluntly,  as  I  have  done ;  but 
when  one  is  received  among  them  and  listens 
to  their  side  of  the  South's  condition  ;  to 
their  calm  admissions  of  our  victory  in  the 
old  struggle ;  to  their  resignation  to  the  dire 
poverty  that  fell  to  them  in  the  aftermath ; 
to  their  confidences — if  they  will  go  that  far 
— about  present  situations  and  their  own 
wishes,  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  make  clear  de 
ductions.  Possibly  I  am  assisted  greatly  by 
my  own  knowledge  of  Northern  sentiment. 
Having  won  the  victory  and  administered 
the  punishment,  we  now  graciously  offer  and 
allow  monuments  and  things  for  conciliation, 

36 


and  I  think  I  must  be  honest  and  confess 
that  I,  too,  look  upon  it  as  rather  patroniz 
ing  on  our  part.  The  monuments  are  more 
to  our  own  generosity  than  to  brotherly 
love,  aren't  they  ?  Anyway,  I  am  sure  that 
we,  too,  are  only  human  ;  and  if  we  had  not 
been  the  victors,  I  don't  suppose  we  should 
be  willing  to  set  up  monuments  to  South 
ern  generals  any  more  than  the  Southern 
ers  are  doing  it  for  the  North.  We  should 
be  feeling  as  they  do,  and  we  should  not 
take  our  medicine  so  quietly.  We  would 
clinch  our  fists,  give  black  eyes,  and,  in  the 
words  of  Barry  Bulkley,  of  Washington, 
when  someone  suggested  his  going  to  war 
and  being  a  hero,  and  he  thought  it  would 
be  just  his  luck  to  be  assigned  to  "Jimmie" 
Elaine's  command,  we  would  "  knock  the 
stuffing  out  of  him"  who  dared  to  speak 
to  us  on  such  a  vital  subject.  We  may 
not  shoot  so  easily  as  they  do  in  the  South, 
but  surely  we  strike  out  from  the  shoulder 
37 


more,  and  on  less  provocation.  So,  too,  can 
we  understand  how  we  should  dislike  to 
be  continually  reminded  that  we  were  the 
under  dogs  in  a  fight.  Every  time  the 
North  tries  to  show  that  the  old  feeling 
has  passed  away,  and  that  we  are  now  one 
nation,  it  serves  as  a  reminder,  and  an 
added  sensation  of  resentment  is  caused. 
This  is  a  perfectly  natural  emotion,  con 
trolled  neither  by  politics  nor  nation.  It 
is  just  human  nature  that  cries  out :  "  Can't 
you  let  us  alone  ?  Haven't  we  had 
enough  ? " 

As  for  the  leaving  alone,  surely  the  South 
understands  its  own  better  than  we  do. 
The  conditions  between  the  races  through 
politics  have  grown  much  worse  instead  of 
better  since  the  Civil  War.  The  men  of 
the  Southern  families  went  to  the  front  to 
fight  for  principle,  leaving  their  women  and 
children  in  the  care  of  the  colored  people, 
38 


with  never  a  thought  that  the  confidence 
would  be  betrayed.  Neither  was  it.  Such 
a  thing  would  be  impossible  to-day.  Free 
dom  has  taught  the  negro  more  the  meaning 
of  license  than  of  liberty.  He  is  notable  to 
distinguish  between  the  two,  and  a  law-abid 
ing  citizen  with  responsibilities  is  entirely  be 
yond  his  uneducated  intelligence.  He,  in  his 
primitiveness,  has  no  particular  ambition. 
He  is  not  even  anxious  to  make  money. 
All  he  cares  for  is  enough  to  live  on.  If  he 
has  any  money  at  all  beyond  present  needs, 
he  prefers  not  to  work.  He  never  thinks 
of  saving  and  laying  aside  for  a  "  rainy  day." 
Someone  else  must  think  of  that. 

Major  Trimble,  a  Northerner,  of  the 
Volunteer  Service,who  is  interested  in  the  pro 
duction  of  American  tea  and  has  a  plantation  at 
Summerville,  a  few  miles  out  of  Charleston, 
and  who  employs  about  200  negroes,  tells 
me  that  the  only  way  to  get  steady  work  out  of 
39 


the  blacks  is  to  pay  themjust  enough  to  live  on. 
Fifty  cents  a  day  keeps  them  going.  If  he 
wants  extra  work,  and  gives  them  extra  pay, 
he  makes  a  mistake.  This  he  has  learned 
by  experience.  He  does  not  get  any  more 
work  done,  but  with  the  extra  pay  the  negro 
lays  off  and  idles  until  it  is  gone.  He  is 
obliged  to  have  white  men  for  overseers  to 
get  any  work  at  all  out  of  the  blacks.  His 
greatest  difficulty  is  in  getting  competent 
white  men  for  the  positions. 

The  field  negroes  of  the  South  are  with 
out  any  sense  of  morality,  and  are  cruel  to 
each  other,  without  any  of  the  finer  sensibil 
ities  to  make  them  the  human  beings  the 
Northern  politician  is  trying  to  "  encourage." 
In  sickness  they  attend  each  other  up  to  the 
time  death  is  certain,  then  they  leave  the 
sufferer  to  die.  He  can  beg  piteously  for 
water  or  other  relief,  but  no  one  cares.  He 
dies  alone.  The  funeral,  however,  is  a  great 
40 


feast  and  gala  day.  The  colored  picnic  as 
we  know  it  in  the  North  is  a  sad  affair  com 
pared  to  the  revel  of  the  field  negro's 
funeral. 

For  commercial  and  financial  consider 
ations  no  Southerner  would  go  back  to 
slavery.  It  is  much  cheaper  in  every  way  to 
hire  labor  than  to  own  slaves.  To  own 
even  200  laborers  would  mean  an  invest 
ment  of  a  large  capital  in  the  beginning.  In 
addition  there  would  be  clothing  and  provi 
sions,  and  loss  through  sickness  and  death. 
In  hiring  colored  labor  at  fifty  cents  a  day 
there  is  no  responsibility  aside  from  getting 
the  work  out  of  the  laborer.  In  most  in 
stances,  if  the  man  of  color  can  get  his  fifty 
cents  without  working  for  it,  he  will  not 
work.  There  are  about  55,000  inhabitants 
of  Charleston,  29,000  of  whom  are  colored. 
It  would  be  sad  indeed  to  have  colored  men 
in  power  or  colored  rule  in  any  quarter  of  the 


town.  The  streets  seem  full  of  idle  negroes. 
They  are  peaceful  and  quiet  and  appear  to 
be  well  fed,  but  absolutely  without  ambition, 
other  than  to  stand  around,  sit  on  doorsteps 
and  gaze  into  vacancy.  They  are  poorly 
dressed,  but  it  must  be  impossible — judging 
from  filled  out  cheeks — for  anyone  to  starve 
here  in  the  South.  I  have  never  seen  any 
of  them  begging.  If  you  ask  how  they  live, 
no  one  seems  to  know.  Yet  they  are  all 
very  much  alive.  The  better  class  of  ne 
groes,  the  family  servants,  are  just  as  improvi 
dent  as  the  field  negroes.  They  never  save 
any  money  and  seem  to  have  no  ideas  of 
thrift.  They  live  on,  carelessly,  happily, 
and  never  give  the  least  thought  to  the  mor 
row.  Their  trust  seems  to  be  entirely  in 
the  white  man  at  the  helm.  To  take  the 
white  man  away  would  leave  them  stranded 
and  helpless.  Yet  the  appointment  of  col 
ored  men  to  Federal  offices  in  the  South 

means  the  driving  away  of  the  best  and  most 

42 


3]n 


substantial  of  the  white  population.  Several 
times  I  have  heard  men  say,  "  We  will  leave 
the  country  and  live  in  Europe."  Every 
white  person  in  Charleston  hopes  that  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt  will  reconsider  the  nomina 
tion  he  has  made  for  Collector  of  the  Port. 
Failing  to  do  this  will  mean  that  more  ap 
pointments  of  the  same  nature  will  have  to 
be  made  to  satisfy  the  colored  man's  demand. 
If  these  appointments  must  be  made  for  the 
sake  of  political  honor — I  suppose  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  political  honor — it  would  be 
better  to  find  the  offices  for  the  colored  man 
somewhere  up  North.  Then  Jet  the  North 
fight  it  out. 

I  agree  with  these  Southerners.  They 
should  be  let  alone.  They  don't  care  for 
monuments  or  statues  that  may  be  gentle  re 
minders,  but  reminders  just  the  same,  and 
they  do  understand  the  negroes.  They  get 
on  with  them  quietly  and  successfully  if  out- 
43 


side  influences  do  not  come  in.  They  can 
work  out  the  problems  of  the  South  through 
intelligent  knowledge,  while  the  Northerner 
in  his  zest  and  zeal  and  blundering  will  keep 
the  pot  boiling  and  everything  stirred  up. 
The  Southern  gentlemen  are  good  sports.  But 
don't  think  I  mean  the  Tillmans—  Senator 
and  Lieutenant-Governor  ;  they  belong  to  a 
different  class.  The  good  sport  in  a  fight 
recognizes  the  victor.  The  loser  holds  out 
his  hand  in  friendship  when  the  fight  is  ended. 
He  respects  the  power  of  the  winner.  Then 
he  wants  to  forget  and  he  wants  others  to 
forget.  It  would  be  in  better  taste  if  the 
North — what  was  that  schoolboy  game  ? 
Shinny  ? — shinnied  on  its  own  side. 

Charleston  is  probably  the  most  conser 
vative  of  all  Southern  cities,  and  clings  most 
to  the  old  traditions.  It  is  not  at  all  bitter 
in  its  resentment  of  conditions  forced  by  the 
Civil  War.  Or  if  it  be  bitter,  its  people  are 
44 


too  well  bred  to  indicate  it.  Nevertheless, 
they  glory  in  being  of  the  old  South.  They 
have  a  worship  of  ancestry  equal  almost  to 
the  inhabitants  of  North  China.  A  grand 
father  is  of  much  more  importance  here  than 
the  millions  of  a  Vanderbilt.  It  makes  no 
difference  that  they  are  now  poor ;  it  makes 
no  difference  that  old  customs  have  changed ; 
that  a  new  generation  has  not  the  same 
reverence  for  forefathers,  and  in  its  eager 
ness  to  do  something  itself  forgets  to  rattle 
ancestral  bones  ;  it  makes  no  difference  that 
the  square  corners  of  the  modern  era  cannot 
fit  the  round  circles  of  the  old ;  it  makes  no 
difference  that  Charleston  may  stand  entirely 
alone,  with  the  world  rushing  on  and  leaving 
her  behind.  She  is  perfectly  satisfied.  She 
is  distressed  only  when  something  forces  her 
— even  for  an  instant — out  of  the  groove 
that  was  established  in  the  last  century. 
Church,  society,  houses,  homes,  driveways 
and  streets  that  were  known  to  their  fore- 
45 


fathers  are  good  enough  for  the  old  Charles- 
tonians  of  to-day.  And  the  stately,  dis 
tinguished  Charlestonians  of  the  old  school 
are  the  kings  and  queens  and  rulers  of 
Charleston  society.  No  flippant,  disrespect 
ing  new  generation  has  any  power  or  influence 
socially.  This  respect  for  silver-haired  age 
has  its  counterpart  only  among  the  Knicker 
bockers  of  the  North,  and  is  gradually  being 
lost  sight  of  through  deaths  or  the  infirmities 
of  age.  In  the  North — New  York  as  the 
representative  city — the  mantle  does  not 
seem  to  fall  on  the  shoulders  of  the  next 
generation  as  it  does  here.  New  York  is 
too  cosmopolitan.  "  Old  Schools  "  get  lost 
in  new  amusements.  The  stately  dame 
must  step  aside  for  the  daughter  who  rushes 
by  in  her  automobile.  How  can  any  auto 
mobile  generation  be  stately  ? 

Charleston  society  does  not  go  by  in  auto 
mobiles.     It  belongs  to  the  St.  Cecilia.     The 
46 


St.  Cecilia  is  the  oldest  dancing  club  in 
America.  It  began  as  a  musical  club,  and 
was  established  in  1761.  It  is  a  wealthy 
society,  but  wealth  does  not  open  its  doors  to 
you.  You  must  have  grandfathers.  Three 
balls  are  given  during  the  season.  Though 
the  club  is  over  140  years  old,  its  doings 
have  never  been  mentioned  in  the  news 
papers.  I  believe  there  is  a  legend  that 
some  rash  individual  attempted  to  describe 
costumes,  mention  names  and  speak  pleas 
antly  of  famous  beauties,  at  one  time,  but 
the  matter  is  spoken  of  with  such  bated 
breath,  and  with  such  horror  at  the  sacrilege, 
that  it  has  been  impossible  for  me  to  get 
the  particulars.  The  old-time  courtesies  of 
the  ballroom  are  strictly  observed — the  old- 
time  courtesies  when  our  fathers  and  mothers 
danced  by  step,  and  when  the  polka  and  the 
quadrille  were  the  favorite  numbers.  Though 
the  dances  have  become  modern  in  the 
march  of  years  the  etiquette  of  the  ballroom 
'  47 


is  unchanged.  There  is  no  going  out  be 
tween  dances,  no  sitting  out  dances  on  bal 
conies  or  in  conservatories,  no  little  sneaks 
for  a  minute's  private  talk  on  near-by  stairs, 
nothing  careless,  nothing  without  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  most  conscientious  chaperon. 
All  around  the  room,  against  the  wall,  is  a 
row  of  chairs.  The  dancing  begins  promptly 
at  nine  o'clock.  Cards  are  filled  beforehand, 
usually,  and  under  no  consideration  would  a 
Charleston  girl  divide  a  dance.  It  would  be 
considered  most  improper  by  her  chaperon 
and  just  cause  for  a  duel  by  the  -man  who 
had  his  name  down  for  the  number.  The 
chaperon  usually  takes  charge  of  the  dancing 
card  and  deals  out  the  girl  to  the  different 
claimants.  The  girl  takes  the  dance  with 
the  claimant  and  also  the  promenade  after 
the  dance,  around  and  around  the  room. 
He  then  takes  her  religiously  back  to  her 
chaperon,  where  her  next  partner  is  sure  to 
find  her.  And  I  must  say  this  is  a  great 


improvement   over   the    Northern    method, 
and  no  end  of  a  convenience. 

The  pretty  girls  ejaculate  they  have  "  noth 
ing  to  wear/*  but  dainty  muslins  make  ball 
room  belles  here  as  much  as  lace  and  chiffon 
do  at  home.  An  elaborate  supper  is  served 
and  champagne  flows  freely.  "  Yet,  strange 
as  it  may  seem,"  I  heard  a  man  say,  "  I 
have  never  seen  a  St.  Cecilian  exhilarated  by 
wine.  They  drink  at  will,  but  everybody  is 
so  well  poised,  so  constantly  living  up  to  old 
traditions  of  respectability,  that  even  wine 
does  not  affect  them/' 

This  club  never  admits  outsiders  to  its 
sacred  portals,  and  visitors  in  the  town  are 
not  invited  unless  by  special  request  of  some 
member  or  for  some  personal  distinction. 
To  become  a  member  ?  Well,  to  be  a  de 
scendant  of  King  George,  or  William  the 
Conqueror,  or  to  have  in  you  a  few  drops 

of  Argyle  blood  might  admit  you,  but  it  is 
4  49 


better  to  have  a  Charlestonian  grandfather. 
Then  there  will  be  no  doubts  and  no  ques 
tions  asked. 

There  is  a  younger  element  in  Charleston 
that  entertains  delightfully,  and  is  not  quite 
so  devoted  to  ancestral  worship,  yet  is,  too, 
of  the  old  stock.  Its  homes  are  elegant  and 
its  servants — colored,  of  course — in  numbers 
and  in  training  the  envy  of  every  Northern 
visitor.  A  country  club  about  three  miles 
out  of  the  city  is  a  daily  recreation.  Al 
together  the  quiet,  peaceful,  moderate  pace 
of  Charleston  life  is  certainly  ideal.  On  the 
Battery,  where  the  handsomest  homes  are, 
is  a  promenade  looking  off  to  the  different 
islands  and  military  forts,  and  nowhere  else 
on  the  coast  is  the  view  so  fine.  A  new 
hotel  is  talked  of  for  one  end  of  the  Battery, 
but  the  conservatism  of  the  Charlestonians 
keeps  the  idea  in  embryo.  The  older  ele 
ment  see  too  many  intruders.  An  attractive 
£0 


9jn 


hotel  in  such  an  ideal  spot  would  certainly 
bring  people  to  Charleston  who  would  never 
understand  all  that  is  so  sacred  to  these  in 
habitants,  and  would,  without  doubt,  destroy 
much  of  Charleston's  charm.  For  it  is  a 
charm  in  this  selfish,  ambitious,  rushing  life 
to  find  a  spot  so  unspoiled  by  worldliness. 


iv 

THE  NEGRO  A    STUMBLING  BLOCK    AND 
GONZALES    A    MARTYR. 

COLUMBIA,  S.C.,  February  10. 

CONDITIONS  are  all  wrong  in  the  South 
either  for  carrying  out  high,  moral  purpose, 
or  for  instantaneous  changes.  The  negro 
is  the  stumbling  block.  Northern  politics 
have  placed  him  where,  under  the  flag  and 
constitutionally,  he  has  the  same  privileges 
as  a  white  citizen.  Politics  did  not  remember 
that  the  negro  in  his  natural  state  is  a  savage 
and  in  his  civilized  state  a  dependent  slave. 
To  give  him  his  freedom  does  not  take  from 
him  the  instincts  of  his  nature  or  of  the 
later  servility ;  cannot  put  into  him  force  of 
character  or  ambition.  Freedom,  if  it  means 
52 


3In 


anything  to  him,  means  doing  as  he  pleases, 
with  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  finer  sen 
sibilities  that  make  thralldom  of  one's  own 
conscience.  Free  as  the  negro  is,  the  South 
ern  negroes  must  still  be  led,  or  must  be 
driven,  or  else  must  be  given  time  and  the 
right  conditions  for  development  into  respon 
sible,  law-abiding,  law-protecting  citizens. 
This  cannot  be  brought  about  through  poli 
tics.  Politics,  however,  through  franchise 
and  wire-pulling,  can  bring  about  a  condition 
that  makes  the  negro  vote  legal.  Should 
this  become  general  in  towns  where  the 
colored  population  is  the  largest,  it  would 
mean  disaster  to  the  South  and  a  racial  war. 
This  country  is  supposed  to  be  a  white  man's 
country.  Even  the  most  daring  and  unscru 
pulous  politician  would  not  in  his  senses  as 
sert  that  the  Stars  and  Stripes  are  meant  for 
more  than  to  protect  colored  people  under 
white  rule.  Yet,  under  present  conditions, 
with  colored  political  appointments  rasping 
53 


against  traditions,  with  compulsory  education 
being  legislated — reading  and  writing  being 
the  test  that  makes  the  negro  a  voter — our 
flag  does  not  seem  much  of  a  protection. 
Surely  the  problems  of  the  South  are  a  Chi 
nese  puzzle  ! 

With  two  such  distinct  races  in  color  and 
mental  development,  there  should  be  differ 
ent  laws — one  for  the  negro,  one  for  the 
white  race.  I  heard  a  prominent  Judge,  who 
has  been  on  the  bench  for  years  in  South 
Carolina,  say  that  he  always  meted  out  much 
severer  punishment  to  the  white  prisoner 
than  to  the  colored ;  that  he  considered  the 
white  man  much  more  responsible  for  his 
sins  than  the  negro  ;  that  the  intelligence  of 
the  negro  fell  far  below  even  the  lowest  class 
of  white.  Yet  politics  and  the  franchise 
place  them  equally  in  affairs  of  the  country  ! 
For  very  shame's  sake,  and  perhaps  to  have 
something  to  legislate — these  people  seem  to* 
54 


91n 


be  indefatigable  legislators — bills  against 
child  labor,  bills  for  compulsory  education 
and  bills  for  the  bettering  of  all  conditions 
in  the  South  are  introduced  in  State  Legis 
latures  and  then  fall  flat  or  become  inopera 
tive  because  of  struck-out  clauses  or  from 
the  fact  that  the  negro  must  be  helped  the 
same  as,  and  by  the  side  of,  the  white  people. 
There  is  no  class  of  white  child  that  will  sit 
down  by  the  side  of  a  colored  child  in  the 
schools  of  the  South.  They  can  play  to 
gether  as  children,  but  the  black  child  fetches 
and  carries  for  the  white  child  and  is  still  the 
subject  as  in  the  slave  days.  The  great 
question  of  child  labor  has  for  its  strongest 
point  the  fact  that  while  the  white  child  is 
employed  in  the  cotton  mills — no  colored 
people  are  ever  employed  in  these  mills — 
the  negro  child  is  getting  ahead  in  education. 
The  negroes,  knowing  that  they  are  not  vot 
ing  citizens  without  the  knowledge  of  read 
ing  and  writing,  and  being  taught  that  to 
55 


vote  is  power,  crowd  the  schools  with  a  seem 
ing  ambition  away  beyond  the  whites.  Their 
ambition  does  not  go  beyond  the  franchise 
clause,  excepting  in  rare  instances  where  an 
intelligent  half-ancestry  has  overbalanced  the 
negro  drifting  instincts. 

Compulsory  education,  which  has  become 
a  law  in  this  State,  has  been  made  inoper 
ative  by  striking  out  the  clause  fining  or  im 
prisoning  parents  who  do  not  enforce  the 
law.  In  every  instance  the  incentive  for  this 
condition  of  things  is  to  keep  the  negro  be 
low  the  privileges  accorded  by  the  Govern 
ment.  It  sounds  badly  to  admit  or  assert 
that  the  South  does  try  to  keep  the  negro 
down,  but  the  Southerners  know  the  negro. 
They  know  his  possibilities  and  impossibil 
ities.  They  know  his  condition  is  better 
when  entirely  cared  for  by  the  white  people 
than  when  he  does  for  himself.  They  know 
he  cannot  get  on  without  the  guidance  of  the 
56 


3]n 


white  people.  They  know  he  lacks  the 
reasoning  power  that  makes  an  intelligent, 
wide  world  in  one  accord.  Because  of  this 
lack  of  reasoning  power  and  the  impulse  that 
alone  guides  his  actions,  and  with  his  ideas 
of  license — misunderstood  liberty — the  negro 
is  the  menace  to  Southern  civilization  as  we 
gauge  it  from  the  North.  The  negro  is  not 
held  down  by  the  South,  but  the  negro  can 
not  be  made  into  an  independent  citizen  as  a 
race.  He  must  now  and  always  be  led. 
The  Southerners  know,  as  we  do  not,  and 
in  their  knowledge  of  the  negro  character 
have  the  best  interests  of  the  colored  race  at 
heart.  When  franchises  and  politics  get  the 
negro  on  the  wrong  plane,  then  the  South 
erner  must  do  the  best  he  can  for  the 
Southern  country,  and  the  result  is  a  condi 
tion  that  makes  problems. 

These   "  walking    arsenals,"  this  constant 
"  killing  his  man,"  in  the  South,    this   evt^r- 
57 


ready  use  of  a  weapon  that  is  concealed,  are 
indirectly  the  result  of  forced  contact  with 
lawless  negroes.  He  is  a  mighty  brave  man 
who  goes,  at  all  times,  without  a  weapon. 
Still,  it  is  not  the  custom  to  carry  weapons. 
Many  men  say  they  never  carry  a  weapon, 
and  none  of  the  better  class  of  men — the 
more  intelligent  class — considers  it  necessary. 
Yet,  the  most  conservative,  refined  and 
broadest  thinkers  of  this  class  will  tell  you  in 
detail  of  the  unsettled  conditions,  and  that 
there  is  risk  in  going  without  something  for 
self-protection.  "  But,"  they  add,  "  it  is  so 
cowardly  to  go  armed/'  The  colored  people, 
if  they  can  scrape  together  enough  money, 
always  carry  some  kind  of  a  weapon — a  ra 
zor  or  a  revolver.  And  you  can  never  tell 
when  you  will  run  up  against  the  sharp  edge 
of  their  impulsive,  uncontrollable  tempers. 
Late  at  night  you  may  accidentally  jostle  a 
negro  ;  he  feels  insulted,  immediately  whips 
out  a  razor  or  revolver,  and  can  be  subdued 
58 


only  by  the  flash  of  steel.  The  most  conser 
vative  men  who  say  the  revolver  is  unneces 
sary  will  add,  "  Well,  I  must  admit  that 
every  woman  who  lives  out  of  the  city  limits 
should  go  armed.  White  women  are  never 
safe  from  the  brutality  of  these  black  beasts." 
The  most  intelligent  men  and  women  de 
plore  the  fact  of  the  carrying  of  firearms,  and 
really  believe  themselves  when  they  say  the 
impression  that  it  is  a  custom  is  erroneous. 
Yet  they  will  tell  you  of  a  time  they  "  really 
needed  a  revolver,"  or  else  of  a  time  "  it  was 
lucky  they  chanced  to  have  a  revolver  ! " 

Two  or  three  years  ago,  a  representative 
man  met  an  acquaintance  on  the  train,  who 
said,  "  I  am  going  to  stop  in  Columbia  if 
you  think  I  won't  run  into  a  shooting ;  I 
declare  I  am  almost  afraid  to  stop  there,  your 
bullets  fly  so  easily." 

"  Nonsense  !  "  said  the  Columbian  ;  "you 
have  an  entirely  wrong  idea ;  you  people  of 
59 


the  North  are  always  rilled  with  wrong  ideas 
of  the  South.  Just  get  off  the  train,  and  I 
will  show  you  the  most  peaceful,  law-abiding 
little  town  you  ever  saw.*' 

The  acquaintance  decided,  laughingly,  to 
run  the  risk.  He  went  to  the  hotel,  started 
out  to  see  the  town  before  supper,  and  at  the 
first  corner  ran  into  the  worst  shooting  affair 
of  the  year.  So  he  returned  to  the  hotel, 
took  his  satchel,  went  supperless  to  the 
station  and  left  on  the  first  train. 

I  arrived  here  at  night.  The  next  morn 
ing's  paper  had  in  the  first  column  the  killing 
of  a  father  and  son  by  a  neighbor  for  some 
dispute  over  a  dog,  in  a  suburban  district. 
Each  day  there  seems  to  be  an  affair  that 
values  human  life  very  cheaply,  but  these 
dear,  good  people  don't  notice  it.  If  I 
speak  of  it,  they  immediately  remind  me  of 
the  horrible  butcheries,  cold-blooded  mur 
ders,  trunk  discoveries,  man-hole  conceal- 
60 


3]n 


ments,  dismembered  bodies,  saloon  death 
blows  and  a  few  other  killings  we  have  in  the 
North,  and  they  have  the  best  of  the  argu 
ment.  The  murders  here  are  clean-cut  and 
sure,  not  disfiguring  ;  if  methods  must 
be  considered,  these  seem  the  most  respect 
able.  There  are  a  lot  of  things  these  dear 
Columbia  people  refer  to  about  the  North  if  I 
try  to  get  at  conditions  here.  So  I  am  being 
led  to  believe,  C(  seeing  oursel's  as  ithers  see 
us,"  that  the  South  is  much  more  civilized — 
problems  or  no  problems — than  the  North. 
Anyway,  I  am  cultivating  a  humble  and  neu 
tral  spirit,  and  trying  to  have  no  prejudice, 
no  favor. 

But  I  certainly  do  have  skirmishes.  And 
I  certainly  have  struck  a  "  South  "  in  Co 
lumbia.  The  hotel  is  filled  with  State  Sena 
tors  and  Congressmen,  and  my  talk  seems 
to  catch  those  that  are  still  seceding.  They 
all  acknowledge  one  country,  one  flag,  but 

the  things  I  hear  about   the  North  and  the 
61 


way  it  does  not  know  anything  about  the 
South  !  It  makes  me  bring  my  batteries  to 
bear,  and  the  blood  of  my  ancestors  to  boil, 
and  the  spirit  of  my  womanhood  to  flash 
every  little  while.  We  fight  our  battles  over 
the  soup,  fish,  roast  and  ice,  and  then  run  up 
flags  of  truce  over  the  dessert.  We  all  go 
off  the  field  of  battle  together,  and  then  find 
our  fighting  forces  gathered  again  at  the  next 
meal.  They  seem  to  think  they  are  still 
"  Johnnie  Rebs  "  to  us,  as  we  are  "  Yankees  " 
to  them,  and  that  we  hate  them.  I  have 
wanted  to  repeat  some  little  platitudes  about 
love  begetting  love,  etc.,  but  I  refrain.  Still 
one  of  the  men  at  the  table— a  man  with 
whiskers,  who  knows  everything  both  North 
and  South,  and  who,  I  suppose,  would  be 
considered  in  the  light  of  an  oracle — seems 
quite  proud  of  his  Northern  son-in-law,  who, 
he  says,  is  worth  a  million  !  Perhaps  he  is 
gauging  Northern  honor  by  those  millions. 

I  wonder  how  the   son-in-law  got  the  mil- 
62 


3]n 


lion  ?  Perhaps  he  belongs  to  some  of  those 
trusts  of  ours.  Yes,  Columbia  is  a  mighty 
good  place  to  be  humble  and  neutral. 

.««•••• 
You  cannot  stay  in  Columbia  any  length 
of  time  without  learning  to  reverence  the 
name  of  the  murdered  editor,  N.  G.  Gon- 
zales.  If  any  man  ever  built  a  monument 
for  himself,  he  did  it.  His  work  and  very 
soul  seemed  to  be  for  the  good  of  South 
Carolina.  His  strength  of  purpose  was  so 
great  that  if  he  could  have  looked  into  the 
future  and  known  what  his  fate  was  to  be  he 
would  not  have  hesitated.  While,  perhaps, 
he  could  not  be  called  popular  in  the  general 
sense  of  the  term,  he  was  worshipped  by 
those  who  knew  him  personally.  Just  in 
proportion  to  the  love  he  called  out,  so  did 
he  inspire  hate  in  those  whom  he  pinned  to 
the  wall  with  his  pen  and  kept  writhing  while 
he  exposed  their  assailable  points.  He  had 
all  the  Spanish  vituperance  and  fluency, 
63 


tempered  with  the  highest  American  resolu 
tions,  reason  and  desire  to  build  for  the 
South  a  foundation  that  should  be  for  all 
time.  He  was  not  a  fluent  talker,  but  words 
dropped  in  his  editorial  column  like  a  tor 
rent  at  Niagara.  His  pen  strength  was  so 
great  that  whatever  he  attacked,  whatever  he 
dug  up,  whatever  he  set  out  to  do,  was  done, 
because  back  of  his  wonderful  wording  was 
always  the  watchword  for  the  truth  and  the 
right.  Tillman  aspired  to  be  Governor ;  it 
was  bad  enough  that  he  was  Lieutenant- 
Governor.  The  Tillman  politics  of  the 
South  were  like  the  Croker  politics  of  the 
North.  His  record  was  so  openly  bad  that 
proof  after  proof  was  given  by  this  facile 
pen.  Tillman  "  took"  all  kinds  of  accusa 
tions.  He  was  called  a  falsifier.  It  was 
proven  that  he  was  one.  He  was  called  "  a 
blackleg,"  a  scoundrel — everything  that  a 
man  of  spirit  or  manhood  would  resent.  He 
was  dared  to  deny  the  accusations.  He 
64 


gin 


"  took  it  "  like  a  craven  cur.  He  was  de 
feated.  Every  man,  woman  and  child  knows 
of  the  traits  that  make  him  a  man  to  be  de 
spised,  though  a  brute  to  be  feared.  The 
truthful  pen  of  Mr.  Gonzales  told  much,  but 
withheld  more.  It  told  only  those  things 
that  would  affect  the  public  if  he  were  made 
their  Governor.  His  private  life — those 
things  that  would  reflect  upon  his  family  or 
that  of  his  father — it  withheld.  Then,  after 
five  months  had  passed  and  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  had  to  lay  aside  his  purple  robe  as 
President  of  the  Senate  and  could  not  step 
into  the  honored  position  so  ably  filled  by 
Governor  Heywood,  the  beast  predominated. 
Though  the  man  had  not  resented  nor  recog 
nized  what  he  could  have  termed  insults,  the 
savage  instinct  wanted  revenge.  He  could 
not  act  the  part  of  the  Southern  gentleman, 
who  is  expected  to  "  shoot  on  sight "  at  the 
proper  time,  when  it  is  the  quickest  and  best 

shot  that  modifies  the  crime.      He  had  met 
5  65 


Mr.  Gonzales  several  times  in  the  interim, 
but  the  circumstances  were  not  so  propitious 
for  his  crime.  This  time  there  was  no  dan 
ger  for  himself.  Mr.  Gonzales  had  turned 
to  one  side,  and  was  defenseless. 

It  is  remarkable — the  silence  of  The  State 
— the  newspaper  owned  by  the  Gonzales 
brothers — about  Tillman.  His  name  has 
never  been  mentioned.  This  dignified  si 
lence  is  as  impressive  as  the  deep  love  and 
worship  everywhere  in  this  town  for  the 
victim.  Though  three  weeks  have  passed 
since  the  death  of  Mr.  Gonzales,  the  mourn 
ing  is  as  apparent  as  at  first.  One  lady  said, 
"  Even  the  stone  pavements  seem  to  cry 
out,  he  was  so  much  a  part  of  all  that  is  best 
that  the  town  represents/'  When  I  ask  if 
they  think  that  justice  will  be  done  and  a 
white  man  will  meet  his  punishment  for  the 
crime,  they  say,  "  Yes  !  Yes  !  There  must 

no  doubt  of  it  creep  into  one's  mind.     If 
66 


3fn 


there  is  virtue  in  thought- waves,  it  must  be 
brought  to  bear  on  this  man's  crime.  If 
we  think  he  will  be  punished,  it  may  help 
to  bring  it  about."  Then  they  add,  thought 
fully  and  sadly,  "  If,  at  last,  this  crime  in 
South  Carolina  is  punished,  I  believe  even 
Mr.  Gonzales  would  have  been  willing  to 
die  for  the  good  to  the  State." 

The  friends  of  Mr.  Gonzales  begged  him 
to  go  armed.  He  would  not.  He  helped 
pass  the  law  making  it  a  crime  to  carry  con 
cealed  weapons.  He  said  and  believed  that 
only  cowards  carry  firearms.  Yet  the  con 
ditions  here  are  certainly  as  bad  as  on  the 
wild  Western  prairies,  where  everybody 
looks  to  his  belt  and  cartridges  as  a  part  of 
every-day  dress. 

Theories  are  right;  laws  are  civilized  and 
elevating,  but  conditions  are  all  wrong  at 
present  in  the  South.  There  is  only  one 


solution  to  the  problem  :  Keep  the  negro 
out  of  politics.  His  real  friends  are  the 
Southerners.  With  no  fear  of  negro  rule, 
conditions  would  soon  change. 


68 


SHE  BEGINS  WITH  CHILD  LABOR  AND  TACKLES 
BLIND  TIGERS. 

COLUMBIA,  S.  C.,  February  14. 

The  Child  Labor  Bill  had  passed  the  State 
Senate  and  the  House  was  to  have  the  an 
nual  fling  at  it.  When  I  arrived  there  was 
a  heated  discussion  about  whisky  versus 
education.  Some  man  wanted  the  tax  on 
liquors  raised  so  the  appropriation  for  schools 
could  be  increased,  and  another  man  insisted 
that  education  should  not  depend  on  whisky  ; 
the  tax  was  already  high  enough ;  you  could 
not  get  a  drink  without  buying  a  bottleful ; 
prices  were  exorbitant ;  and  as  for  higher 

69 


€l)C 


taxation,  a  profit  of  $566,898   in    1902  was 
enough  money  for  any  State  to  make. 

Certainly  it  did  seem  as  if  the  State  had  a 
fine  eye  to  money  as  well  as  morals,  when  it 
decided  to  go  into  the  liquor  business.  The 
State  watches  against  the  smuggling  of  any 
brands  outside  of  the  Dispensary  supplies, 
and  it  punishes  with  fines  and  imprisonment 
the  selling  of  a  drink,  or  the  opening  of  a 
bottle  on  the  premises,  and  the  purchase 
must  be  made  "  between  the  hours  of  sun 
rise  and  sunset."  Blind  tigers  seemed  to 
worry  the  men  who  did  or  didn't  want  higher 
taxation.  Blind  tigers  are  places — generally 
innocent  looking  restaurants — where  people 
forget  laws  and  quench  a  man's  thirst  from 
an  open  bottle.  In  the  figures  and  arguments 
that  flowed  fast  and  furious  about  education 
and  the  different  grades  of  whisky,  high 
licenses  did  not  do  nearly  so  well  for  the 
city  and  county  treasuries  as  taxation  and 
70 


3Jn 


State  management  have  done.  High  license 
only  turned  in  $4,000  the  year  before  the 
Dispensary  was  established.  The  first  year 
of  the  Dispensary  system  the  profit  to  the 
city  and  county  was  double.  As  improved 
morals  seemed  an  important  part  of  the 
argument,  and  over  $3, 000,000  profit  has 
accrued  in  less  than  ten  years,  1  decided  that 
the  quality — pure  brands — must  have  some 
thing  to  do  with  pure  morality  as  well  as 
high  prices. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  Dispensary  law  has 
reduced  drunkenness  over  47  per  cent.  In 
1892  voters  were  asked,  in  casting  their 
votes  for  State  officers,  to  register  their  pref 
erence  for  "  Prohibition  "  or  "  High 
License."  About  90,000  votes  were  cast ; 
50,000  on  the  question,  30,000  for  prohibi 
tion,  20,000  for  high  license.  As  a  happy 
compromise  the  State  went  into  the  liquor 
business,  which  became  a  legislative  matter 


Clje 


that  never  ceases,  though  profits  are  so  satis 
factory.  Its  supporters  claim  that  in  the 
plain,  unattractive,  sealed  bottles  and  wooden 
boxes,  the  dusty,  warehouse-looking  building 
and  the  cold  daylight,  with  no  treating  of 
friends  at  a  glittering  bar,  no  places  to  sit  at 
a  cosy  table  and  no  free  lunches,  no  one  is 
tempted.  The  sociability  and  conviviality 
are  taken  out  of  drinking,  and  the  men  who 
really  want  the  stuff  for  the  drink's  sake  get 
it,  take  it  away  and  do  not  tempt  others. 
On  the  other  hand,  opposers  claim  that  the 
consumption  is  larger  and  the  profits  show 
it ;  that,  instead  of  the  man  who  wants  a 
drink  taking  one  and  walking  on,  he  buys  a 
bottleful  and  keeps  drinking  until  it  is 
gone  ;  that,  where  before  his  drinking  was 
done  away  from  his  family,  now  the  bottle  is 
taken  home,  and  that  morals  are  not  bet 
tered,  only  covered  from  the  public  gaze. 
The  average  sale  of  liquor  through  the  Dis 
pensaries  of  South  Carolina  amounts  to  one 
72 


9ln 


and  a  half  million  gallons  a  year.  This 
would  seem  an  immense  consumption  with 
out  attractions  or  "  gilt  edges  "  in  any  way, 
and  I  am  wondering  what  the  conditions 
were  before  morals  were  improved  47  per 
cent. 

The  Dispensary  people  claim  that  the 
drinkers  who  actually  crave  whisky  are  left 
over  from  the  old  regime,  and  that  as  they 
die  off  from  age  or  alcohol  the  new  genera 
tion  will  have  healthier  appetites.  But  if  the 
40,000  people  who  did  not  vote  either  way 
had  said  "  high  license  "  the  State  would 
not  have  gone  into  the  liquor  business. 
Eminently  respectable  and  substantial  citi 
zens  say  quietly  :  cc  High  license  would  be 
best  all  round/'  You  cannot  get  even 
Apollinaris  or  Saratoga  Spring  waters  except 
at  drug  stores  or  Dispensaries.  Hotels  in 
Columbia  are  innocent  of  spring  waters  as 
well  as  bar  liquors,  yet  the  waiter,  as  he 
takes  your  order,  asks  kindly  and  insinua- 
73 


tingly  :  cc  Anything  to  drink  ?  "  I  suppose 
there  must  be  cases  and  sealed  bottles  some 
where  about  the  house — or  does  the  waiter 
stand  in  with  the  blind  tigers  and  skip  across 
the  road  or  around  the  corner  to  fill  an 
order  ? 

From  the  prohibition  side  the  arguments 
are  strong  and  far-reaching.  They  claim  that 
in  selling  intoxicating  drinks  the  State  en 
courages  immorality  and  makes  homes  des 
olate,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  pathos  that 
comes  from  the  poverty  and  misery  side  of 
the  drunkard's  home.  They  also  throw  a 
radium  light  on  the  <c  walking  arsenal  "  con 
ditions  in  South  Carolina.  It  seems  that 
when  the  State  decided  to  dispense  only  pure 
brands  of  whisky  it  organized  a  constabulary 
to  enforce  this  law.  The  officers  were  armed 
with  guns  and  given  the  right  to  shoot  when 
they  thought  necessary — the  necessity  mean 
ing  a  troublesome  citizen  who  violated  the 
law  by  smuggling  foreign  brands  or  running 

^•7    A 

74 


9!n 


blind  tigers.  The  troublesome  citizen  then 
found  it  necessary  to  go  armed,  so  shooting 
at  sight  between  the  law  breaker  and  law 
protector  became  common  and  still  con 
tinues.  The  Prohibitionists  claim  that  the 
liquor  traffic  and  its  armed  constables  make 
the  worst  reign  of  terror  the  State  has  ever 
known,  except  the  reign  of  the  carpet-bag 
gers.  They  claim,  also,  that  the  dispensers 
become  violators  and  not  guardians ;  that 
many  brands  sold  as  "  chemically  pure  "  are 
vile  concoctions,  undermining  health  and 
brain ;  that  dishonesty  flourishes  supreme ; 
that  scandals  have  been  hushed  and  the 
honor  of  South  Carolina  has  been  smirched 
until  her  grand  and  brilliant  past  is  dimmed. 
Someone  tells  me  that  whisky  legally 
branded  as  "  The  Cream  of  Carolina,"  and 
thus  called  by  courtesy  in  the  Senate  and 
House,  is  really  "  Hellfire,"  and  is  sold  for 
ten  cents  a  bottle  or  some  such  ridiculously 
low  price.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  quite 
75 


a  common  thing  to  hear,  when  some  shoot 
ing  affair  is  reported,  "  I  suppose  it  was  a 
blind  tiger  man  shot  a  constable,  or  else  the 
constable  did  the  shooting." 

But  these  people  must  legislate.  Every 
little  thing  seems  important  enough  to  car 
ry  into  the  dignified  House  and  Senate. 
When  you  listen  to  their  earnestness — which 
seems  honesty  and  not  oratory — it  is  little 
matter  for  surprise  that  some  arguments  end 
in  shooting.  It  is  not  surprising,  either,  that 
life-long  enmities  are  made  and  the  feuds 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation. 
Southerners  are  certainly  good  and  convinc 
ing  speakers.  You  hear  one  side  of  a  ques 
tion  and  you  are  won  to  it,  and  wonder  how 
you  could  have  believed  the  other  way. 
Then  you  listen  to  the  opposite  side  and  im 
mediately  turn  your  coat  the  other  side  out. 
The  man  with  the  bill  for  increasing  taxation 

on  liquor,  and  thereby  increasing  the  percen- 
76 


tage  of  the  profits  for  education,  talked  as 
well  as  others,  but,  somehow,  he  did  not 
seem  to  catch  the  ear  of  anybody.  Men 
read  their  newspapers  or  talked  aloud,  while 
the  friends  who  were  with  me  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  converse  in  ordinary  tones.  No  one 
was  called  to  order. 

We  went  over  to  the  Senate  Chamber, 
where  there  was  a  fierce  argument  about 
damming  a  little  creek  named  Kinloch. 
One  Senator  wanted  it  dammed,  and  another 
Senator  objected.  This  was  not  a  matter 
affecting  the  State — -just  the  properties  of  two 
absent  men.  The  one  who  wanted  it  used 
good  arguments  ;  the  other  seemed  to  put 
an  "  n  "  in  the  "  dam  "  every  time  he  spoke 
it.  The  Senate  was  much  quieter  than  the 
House.  The  gavel  of  the  President  en 
forced  silence,  and  when  this  did  not  succeed 
the  Secretary  sent  messengers.  That  the 
gavel  and  messengers  were  kept  busy  a  good 
77 


part  of  the  time  proves  that  even  in  this  dig 
nified  atmosphere  Southern  cordiality  could 
not  be  entirely  suppressed.  There  were 
many  names  familiar  in  Washington  strug 
gles — men  who  have  now  come  back  to  their 
own  to  help  in  work,  whether  it  be  damming 
little  creeks  or  settling  more  serious  prob 
lems.  The  President  of  the  Senate  and  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  wear  purple  silk  robes, 
and  the  Secretaries  black  robes.  It  is  said 
here  South  Carolina  is  the  only  State  where 
this  old  custom  survives.  The  traditions  of 
the  South  are  as  much  to  the  front  in  Colum 
bia  as  in  Charleston,  but  you  are  forgiven 
here  if  you  are  not  a  Columbian,  and  a  little 
quicker  if  you  are  not  Charlestonian.  There 
seems  to  be  a  bit  of — of — well,  of  something 
against  Charleston.  Anyway,  it  is  not  like 
Charleston,  where  to  be  a  Charlestonian  is 
the  passport.  One  thing,  however,  you 
must  be  here — you  must  be  a  South  Caro 
linian  !  Columbia,  being  the  capital,  and  its 
78 


3|n 


season  a  gathering  of  the  representative 
people  of  the  State,  the  air  is  more  cosmo 
politan  than  at  Charleston.  You  may  not 
see  so  much  of  the  charming  home  life  here 
as  there,  but  little  attentions  are  showered 
upon  you  in  the  most  unassuming  way. 
You  are  taken  to  drive,  beautiful  flowers  from 
the  gardens  are  sent  to  you — violets,  mag 
nolias  and  carnations — and  with  one  or  two 
good  letters,  you  are  called  upon  by  all  the 
representative  people,  and  it  is  only  a  ques 
tion  of  time — and  yourself — when  you  will 
be  living  the  peaceful,  quiet  Southern  social 
life. 

To  return  to  child  labor,  I  found  the  bill 
was  to  be  discussed  later.  As  I  came  down 
the  corridor  a  man  who  thought  I  appeared 
interested  in  the  Dispensary  law  handed  me 
the  following  schedule  of  net  profits  since 
1893:  1895,2125,328;  1896,  $313,974; 
1898,  $853,219;  1899,  $414,181  ;  1900, 
79 


1474,178;  1901,  1545,248;  1902,  1566, 

898  ;  total,  $3,293,026.  Surely,  South 
Carolina  understands  the  art  of  doing  busi 
ness  successfully. 


80 


VI 


SHE  SUGGESTS    SENDING  COLORED    TROOPS  TO 
THE  PHILIPPINES. 

COLUMBIA,  S.  C.,  February  24. 

TRUTHS  can  be,  and  often  are,  brutal. 
But  there  are  times  when  issues  should  be 
forced,  even  though  brutality  be  required. 
Surely  the  time  is  now  upon  us — if  we  are 
honest  in  our  Northern  politics — for  plain 
and  unvarnished  truths  about  the  negro. 
The  facts,  stripped  of  all  sentimental  veiling, 
cannot  harm  the  race,  and  will  ultimately 
bring  about,  in  a  measure — never  wholly — 
what  is  hoped  for  by  enthusiastic  workers. 
After  thirty-five  years  or  more  of  theory  our 
Secretary  of  War,  Elihu  Root,  a  man  who 

adds  keen  logic  to    keen    knowledge,  says 
6  81 


frankly  that  negro  suffrage  is  a  failure.  He 
asks  why  it  is  that,  though  more  negroes 
were  appointed  to  office  during  the  Hayes 
and  McKinley  administrations  than  during 
the  Roosevelt  reign,  so  much  more  antagon 
ism  is  now  displayed  in  the  South.  Secre 
tary  Root  answers  his  own  question  in  his 
frank  statement  that  negro  suffrage,  after  a 
trial,  is  a  failure.  The  Southern  people  are 
not  unreasonable  and  not  inhuman.  If  negro 
suffrage  were  possible  they  would  be  the 
first  to  appreciate  it.  Their  objections  are 
not  based  so  much  on  color  as  upon  the 
knowledge  of  unfitness.  In  this  knowledge 
of  the  negro  character  and  in  their  reason 
ing  humanity  they  are  to-day  the  only 
genuine,  far-seeing,  substantial  friends  the 
negroes  have.  If  their  antagonism  to 
colored  Government  officials  is  stronger 
now  than  in  other  administrations  it  is 
barely  possible  they  have  waited  to  prove 

first  their  own  fidelity  to  one  country  and 
82 


one  flag,  and  are  now  more  vehement  because, 
after  the  test,  facts  are  more  powerful,  more 
converting  than  would  be  accusations  of  a 
race  prejudice.  It  is  possible,  also,  that 
President  Roosevelt's  appointments  "have 
been  a  little  more  conspicuous  than  were 
those  of  former  Presidents. 

Whatever  it  is,  the  South  is  fermenting 
over  the  negro  question.  There  is  no  ha 
tred  expressed  against  color,  there  is  no 
general  hatred  shown  toward  the  North  (of 
course,  there  are  a  few  of  the  Southerners 
who  do  not  know  the  war  is  over),  there 
are  no  threats  of  violence,  but  there  is  a 
dignified  and  determined  disposition  to  as 
sert  the  rights  of  the  white  man  and  to  plead 
reasonably  for  justice.  This  of  itself  shows 
good  citizenship,  respect  for  the  Administra 
tion  and  patience  toward  the  colored  race. 
They  feel  strongly,  however,  that  in  these 
appointments  color,  and  not  efficiency,  was 
83 


the  consideration.  The  appointment  of  a 
colored  postmaster  at  Indianola  and  the  fact 
that  the  people  of  that  town,  both  colored 
and  white,  are  at  present  deprived  of  United 
States  mail  privileges  recall  vividly  the  ap 
pointment  and  lynching  of  a  negro  post 
master  named  Taylor  in  an  obscure  South 
Carolina  town.  This  appointment  and  con 
firmation  during  the  McKinley  Administra 
tion  incensed  the  populace  not  only  because 
of  color  but  because  of  the  utter  incompe- 
tency  and  lawlessness  of  the  appointee.  He 
was  able  to  read  nothing  save  the  most  legi 
ble  inscriptions  on  mail  matter,  could  not 
make  out  money  orders  nor  cash  them  cor 
rectly,  and  could  not  attend  properly  to  the 
business  of  the  office  in  many  ways.  For 
five  weeks  the  people  fumed  and  fretted  and 
sent  complaints  to  Washington,  but  no  relief 
came.  All  business  of  the  town  was  practi 
cally  suspended.  Finally,  this  Government 
official  exceeded  all  the  rights  of  his  position 
84 


3]n 


and  the  endurance  of  the  people  by  taking 
mail  bundles  and  bags  to  his  own  cabin  in 
the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Indignation  for 
got  Government  and  law,  and  the  Republi 
can  party  and  the  town  were  minus  one 
postmaster. 

I  am  told  that  at  the  Charleston  Post 
Office,  where  many  colored  subordinates  are 
employed,  a  few  years  ago  at  a  cleaning  time 
about  $6,000  worth  of  money  orders, 
cheques  and  other  securities  were  dug  out  of 
a  refuse  pile  of  undelivered  and  unopened 
mail — ignorant,  irresponsible  carelessness 
which  was  criminal,  but  for  which  no  one 
was  individually  culpable. 

In  the  cotton  mills  negroes  are  not  em 
ployed  because  of  their  irresponsible  nature. 
They  would  ruin  the  fine,  intricate  and  expen 
sive  machinery  in  a  day.  They  cannot  be 
trusted  in  any  part  of  the  work.  Their 
touch  is  not  delicate  enough  to  pick  up 
85 


broken  fibre  or  threads,  and  their  eyes  and 
interest  not  keen  enough  to  discover  instant 
ly  that  machinery  is  stopped  because  of  the 
breakage.  The  work,  being  that  of  watch 
fulness  rather  than  of  constant  activity,  when 
the  moment  for  activity  arriv.ed  they  would, 
as  a  race,  be  sleeping  sweetly,  instead  of 
changing  spindles,  or  relieving  and  feeding 
machinery  that  needs  intelligent  and  thought 
ful  attention.  In  work  that  is  constant  ac 
tivity,  under  supervision,  the  negro  is  not  so 
unreliable. 

In  the  arguments  of  Booker  T.  Washing 
ton  for  the  colored  race  there  is  always  rea 
son,  and  there  is  always  pathos  in  his  appeal 
that  the  downtrodden  race  be  accorded  the 
same  privileges  for  advancement  that  are 
given  other  humans.  But  there  are  always 
some  points  left  uncovered  by  this  respected 
and  intelligent  worker  for  his  people.  He 

speaks  of  slavery    being  degradation.     To 
86 


Sin 


quote  his  own  words  :  "  As  a  slave  the  negro 
was  worked.  As  a  free  man  he  must  learn 
to  work.  Being  worked  means  degradation  ; 
working  means  civilization."  Very  true. 
Here  is  something  I  want  to  ask  Booker  T. 
Washington  :  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  in  his  ex 
perience  in  his  Industrial  School  he  has 
found  that  even  his  advanced  pupils  have 
not  yet,  in  some  instances,  learned  to  dis 
tinguish  between  "  being  worked "  and 
"working  "  ?  As  the  negro  becomes  "  civil 
ized  "  and  gets  a  smattering  of  education, 
does  he  not  think  that  he  must  get  away 
from  the  fields  and  plantations  and  into 
something  where  distinctions  and  differences 
stand  out  clearer  ?  It  is  my  observation 
here  in  the  South  that  the  negro  with  some 
education  considers  the  plough,  the  hoe,  the 
spade  and  the  cotton  field  should  be  left  to 
"  po'  white  trash  "  and  "  niggers."  Even 
as  servants  in  families  they  make  their  own 
selection  for  fear  they  will  come  in  contact 

87 


with  the  common  white  element.  If  a  valet 
or  "  man  "  is  sent  to  someone  not  generally 
known — a  newcomer  in  the  town — the  negro 
who  is  "  advanced  "  is  very  apt  to  decide  for 
himself  whether  he  will  take  the  man  for  his 
employer.  At  a  colored  industrial  school, 
a  few  miles  out  of  Columbia,  the  greatest 
difficulty  has  been  experienced  in  getting 
teachers  who  were  willing  to  show  practically 
how  farm  work  should  be  done.  From 
Booker  T.  Washington's  school  at  Tuske- 
gee  several  colored  teachers  have  been  sent 
with  the  highest  recommendations  for  effi 
ciency.  In  every  instance  they  were  not 
willing  to  do  the  work  themselves  until  the 
pupil,  through  observation,  could  learn.  It 
has  been  discouraging  in  the  extreme  to  the 
professor,  who  went  into  the  work  zealous 
ly.  He,  a  man  of  color,  admits  frankly  that 
the  colored  people  still  see  only  degradation 
in  manual  labor.  If  they  can  do  anything 

else  that  shows  the  white  people  and  the  be- 
88 


3]n 


nighted  their  superiority,  then  they  are  tract 
able  and  willing.  Money  is  no  object.  To 
get  out  of  the  "  nigger "  rut  at  all  uplifts 
them  too  much  to  make  them  helpmates  to 
others  of  the  race  not  so  fortunate.  They 
cannot  be  "  aristocrats  "  with  the  white  peo 
ple,  so  they  form  an  aristocracy  by  holding 
themselves,  if  possible,  above  the  menial  la 
bor  that  smacks  of  the  days  of  slavery,  when 
education  was  practically  unknown. 


The  mixed  blood,  naturally,  is  quickest  at 
learning  and  proudest  of  ancestry,  even 
though  it  may  be  an  evidence  of  the  degra 
dation  of  slavery.  This  mixture  of  blood, 
by  the  way,  is  not  regarded  as  degrading  by 
the  negro  himself.  Romances  have  been 
written  of  the  shame,  but  the  mixture  means 
favoritism.  Even  Booker  T.  Washington 
took  a  family  name  and  in  his  pride  made  a 
transposition,  Washington  as  he  uses  it  being 
89 


in  the  wrong  place.  There  is  not  a  negro 
of  mixed  blood  in  the  South,  I'll  venture  to 
say,  who  is  not  proud  of  it  to  haughtiness — 
haughtiness  among  the  colored  people,  and 
impertinence  at  times  and  places  among  the 
white  people.  I  am  using  the  words 
"  proud  "  and  "  pride  "  when  "  vain  "  and 
"  vanity "  are  words  more  appropriate. 
Pride  has  a  self-respect  and  is  a  quality  more 
elevating  than  this  existing  vanity  of  the 
negro.  In  their  vanity  they  have  no  con 
ception  of  the  immorality  nor  of  the  truth 
that  when  they  were  born  an  amalgamated 
class  started  that  represented  all  that  was 
the  lowest  and  vilest  in  both  races.  Being 
savage  is  not  necessarily  being  low  ;  savagery 
can  be  worked  out ;  ignorance  is  pardonable  ; 
but  what  can  change  blood  and  bone  that 
have  in  their  incipiency  all  that  is  false  to 
nature  in  both  races  ?  There  are  an  aristoc 
racy  and  pride  that  are  real  among  the 

pure  blacks  of  the  South.     This  class  is  not 
90 


9!n 


ambitious  to  get  to  the  equality  plane,  nor  is 
it  worrying  over  the  fact  of  negro  suffrage 
being  a  failure.  Many  of  these  blacks  know 
little  and  care  less  about  "  negro  problems  " 
and  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  yet  all 
of  them  have  an  instinctive  pride  in  their 
pure  African  blood.  In  a  quiet  way  they 
feel  superior,  and  are  not  at  all  overpowered 
nor  impressed  by  the  lighter  colored  "  aris 
tocracy."  They  are  trusting  in  their  natures 
and  are,  through  contact  with  civilization  and 
family  servant  ancestry,  honest  and  trust 
worthy.  They  are,  also,  the  victims  in 
every  way  of  the  rascality  of  the  mixed 
blood.  The  Anti-Slavery  Pension  Bill  has 
cost  them  many  a  dollar  that  was  given  to 
help  "  the  cause  "  along,  and  their  supersti 
tions  are  worked  upon  and  discontent  comes 
through  the  force  and  arguments  of  superior 
intellect.  Mixed  blood  and  carpet-bagger^ 
have  upset  their  faith  in  the  friendship  of  the 
white  people,  yet  their  only  natural  fidelity 


is  given  to  the  white  people  of  the  South 
who  know  and  understand  them  and  care  for 
them,  and  who  can  solve  the  problem  for 
them  if  politics  will  leave  the  matter  alone. 

A  lack  of  independence,  ambition  and  rea 
soning  intelligence  blocks  the  progress  of  the 
pure  black,  and  a  lack  of  unadulterated 
blood,  honor  and  high-mindedness  and 
moral  courage  interferes  with  the  ultimate  suc 
cess — so  far  as  "  suffrage  "  extends — of  the 
mixed  blood.  You  cannot  weed  out  of  the 
blood  the  characteristics  of  the  race.  A 
decent  negro  is  spoiled  by  a  few  drops  of 
white  blood,  and  one  drop  of  black  blood 
ruins  a  white  man  for  moral  or  physical 
courage.  So,  too,  does  the  mixture  of  blood 
^eem  to  destroy  the  muscular  strength  and 
endurance  that  are  given  to  the  negro  of 
p,mre  blood.  They  are  the  only  race  in  the 
^,vorld  without  self-respect  or  family  tradi 
tions.  Where  is  the  African  now  in  our 
92 


gin 


country  that  has  a  family  name  or  has  had 
handed  down  to  him  a  language  of  his 
own  ?  The  "  gullah  "  spoken  in  the  South 
in  the  negro  districts  is  a  mixture  of  African 
and  English ;  but  no  one  remembers  a  lan 
guage  of  his  own,  and  no  one  has  a  name 
but  the  name  he  has  adopted  in  memory  of 
some  white  family. 

Booker  Washington  asks  that  there  be  a 
National  Congress  to  settle  the  negro  ques 
tion,  and  brings  in  the  Indian  and  Filipino 
in  argument.  He  says  the  Indian  is  tucked 
away  out  of  sight,  and,  incidentally,  out  of 
mind,  and  that  the  Filipino  has  not,  as  yet, 
been  relegated  to  his  place  ;  that  "  if  he  can 
produce  hair  that  is  long  enough  and  feet 
that  are  small  enough,  he  will  be  called  a 
white  man ;  otherwise,  he  will  be  turned 
over  to  my  race."  It  looks  as  if  this  repre 
sentative  man  of  his  race  was  also  getting 
discouraged.  It  is  surprising — knowing,  as 
93 


he  does,  the  struggle  he  has  to  plant  the 
negro  where  he  will  go  steadily  on  to  some 
thing  substantial,  and  knowing,  as  he  does, 
the  opposition  there  is  in  the  South  to 
negroes  in  politics,  and  knowing,  as  he  must 
know,  the  assistance  he  would  have  from  all 
Southerners — it  is  truly  surprising  that  a 
man  of  his  intelligence  does  not  plead  first 
that  negroes  be  kept  entirely  out  of  politics. 
To  ask  this  would  be  winning  half  the  bat 
tle  ;  to  gain  the  point  would  be  all  the  bat 
tle.  Then  would  come  gradually  a  settle 
ment  of  all  negro  problems.  A  National 
Congress  would  be  impractical  and  incongru 
ous—as  incongruous  as  amalgamated  blood. 
Even  the  purest-blooded  negro  could  not  sit 
in  such  a  Congress  with  Southern  white 
blood  or  Northern  white  blood.  The  South 
has  never  recognized  that  the  amended  Con 
stitution  changed  colored  characteristics,  and 
the  North  has  theory  and  not  knowledge. 


94 


I  do  not  know  Booker  Washington,  but 
I  sometimes  wonder  if  he  is  at  all  like  Ag- 
uinaldo  :  earnest  and  enthusiastic  in  his  work 
for  his  people,  but  his  enthusiasm  blocking 
the  intelligence  that  should  tell  him  how  to 
wade  to  the  shore  from  the  sea  in  which  he 
flounders.  He  should  be  the  first  to  ask 
that  negroes  be  kept  out  of  all  Government 
positions  in  the  South,  and  the  Southerners 
be  left  to  work  out  the  negro  question. 
The  South  is  becoming  an  exceedingly  pros 
perous  part  of  our  country.  As  prosperity 
increases,  the  negro  is  bound  to  receive  the 
benefit — if  education  does  not  lift  him  above 
the  level  of  work.  Education  of  the  negro 
certainly  does  mean,  to  him,  getting  away 
from  work,  and  naturally  his  ambition  is  for 
positions  that  are  not  a  matter  of  brawn  and 
muscle.  The  negro  must,  of  course,  receive 
education,  if  he  wants  it,  and  Booker  Wash 
ington's  ideas  of  education  and  of  teaching 
the  industrial  pursuits  are  grand  ;  but  he 
95 


falls  short  in  not  taking  the  stand  boldly,  for 
the  good  of  his  people,  that  positions  which 
antagonize  the  whites  undo  his  work  and 
give  false  hope  to  an  emotional  and  un 
reasoning  race.  Political  positions  are  un 
certain  and  demoralizing  to  the  white  man, 
they  are  ruination  to  the  colored  man. 
Viewing  it  from  the  white  side  or  the  colored 
side,  it  keeps  the  foundations  for  a  better 
ment  of  conditions  in  a  constant  state  of 
crumbling. 


There  are  9,000,000  negroes  in  America 
and  about  250,000  Indians.  We  cannot 
tuck  out  of  sight  the  negroes  as  we.  have  the 
Indians.  I  have  never  been  able  to  under 
stand  why  the  negroes  should  receive  so 
much  attention  and  the  Indians  so  little. 
Give  the  Indians  suffrage  for  thirty-five 
years,  with  the  chances  the  negroes  have  had, 
and  I  will  warrant  it  will  not  be  failure. 


Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  they  are  quaran 
tined  on  reservations  !  Over  in  the  Philip 
pines  are  8,000,000  Filipinos.  They  will 
never  be  proclaimed  white  men  or  negroes. 
Strange  to  say,  however,  a  great  affinity  ex 
ists  between  the  negroes  of  our  colored  regi 
ments  doing  service  in  the  Philippines  and 
the  natives.  The  American  negro  is  cer 
tainly  king  there.  The  American  negro, 
whom  we  gave  equality  in  citizenship  and 
freed  from  slavery,  deserts  his  country,  and 
his  flag  over  there  and  becomes  the  officer, 
leader  and  sharpshooter  of  the  insurgent 
ranks — -just  as  he  turns  against  the  South,  in 
politics — he  so  loves  an  exalted  position ! 
In  one  attack  from  ambush  five  of  our 
officers  were  either  killed  instantly  or  died 
from  wounds.  The  command  was  left  to 
non-commissioned  officers.  This  was  known 
to  be  American  marksmanship  from  colored 
deserters.  It  might  solve  both  the  negro 
question  and  Filipino  question  to  change  our 
7  97 


troops  in  the  Philippine  Islands  to  colored 
troops  entirely — if  we  must  keep  the  Islands 
and  must  as  a  nation  do  something  for  the 
negro. 


3Jn 


VII 

THEORETICALLY    CHILD    LABOR    IS    WRONG,   PRAC 
TICALLY    IT    HAS    ADVANTAGES. 

COLUMBIA,  S.  C. ,  March  3. 

CHILD  labor  has  a  shockingly  bad  sound, 
but  not  so  bad  as  child  hunger.  So  far  as  I 
can  judge,  the  cotton  mills  have  been  a  haven 
of  refuge  in  every  way  for  the  poor  white 
people  of  the  South.  Millions  have  been 
spent  upon  the  negroes,  trying  to  make  them 
into  "  silk  purses. "  They  have  failed  to  at 
tain  to  the  expected  standard.  They  are 
constant  consumers  and  never  producers. 
Nothing  has  been  done  by  the  Government 
for  the  poor  white  people  of  the  South,  who 
are  much  worse  off  in  every  way  than  the 
99 


negroes.  Philanthropy  is  a  farcical  thing — 
let  that  rest.  The  clauses  which  disfranchise 
the  negro  also  disfranchise  the  poor  white 
people.  The  negro,  somehow,  lives  and 
grows  fat  on  that  which  he  can  pick  up.  He 
prefers  to  learn  to  read  and  write  rather  than 
to  work.  School  makes  a  voter  and  a  "  gem- 
man  "  of  him.  The  poor  white  must  work 
or  starve.  To-day,  it  is  estimated,  there  are 
over  100,000  people,  all  white,  employed 
in  the  cotton  mills  and  other  textile  manu 
factories  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina. 
There  are  six  mills  here  at  Columbia,  and 
the  milling  settlement  has  a  population  of 
10,000.  It  is  true  that  many  of  these  poor 
white  people  cannot  read  or  write,  and  that, 
in  their  thrift,  education  is  being  neglected, 
so  that  the  negro  voters  will  soon  exceed  the 
white  unless  education  is  made  rigidly  com 
pulsory.  But  rigidly  compulsory  education 
will  not  become  a  law  in  South  Carolina,  be 
cause,  the  negro  population  being  in  the  ma- 
100 


3Jn 


jority,  it  would  annul  the  effect  of  the  disfran- 
chisement  law,  which  now  holds  the  negro 
out  of  political  power.  This  leaves  it  en 
tirely  to  the  ambition  of  the  white  laborers 
to  receive  education.  When  for  generations 
this  class  has  known  only  the  bitterest  pov 
erty  and  suffering,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
home  comforts  and  body  comforts  and  money 
in  the  savings  bank  seem  of  more  value  than 
reading  and  writing  and  mythical  suffrage. 
What  do  they  know  or  what  do  they  care 
for  politics  ?  Yet,  poor  and  ignorant  as  they 
are,  and  living  for  dollars  and  cents  as  they 
do,  they  will  not,  even  in  ambition  for  edu 
cation,  attend  the  schools  that  admit  negroes. 


Child  labor  began  here  in  the  South 
through  mothers  being  permitted  to  bring 
young  children  to  the  mills.  There  was  no 
one  at  home  with  whom  they  could  be  left, 

and,  as  the  mills  are  roomy  and  as  much  of 
101 


the  work  is  simply  waiting  for  the  machin 
ery's  demand  for  attention,  children  were  not 
a  nuisance  either  to  employee  or  employer. 
The  mill  was,  indeed,  almost  a  play-room  for 
the  children,  and  the  changing  spindles  and 
other  work  were  like  kindergarten  games, 
When  parents  and  children  found  that  each 
member  of  the  family  could  add  to  the  ex 
chequer — little  children  earning  from  twenty- 
five  to  fift^  cents  a  day — and  older  ones  from 
fifty  cents  to  one  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  the 
spinning-rooms,  carding-rooms  and  weaving- 
rooms  became  naturally  much  more  attrac 
tive  than  school-rooms.  So  the  years  have 
gone  by  and  milling  has  become  a  family 
profession,  to  be  handed  down  from  gen 
eration  to  generation. 

The  women  with  missions  here  in  the 
South,  who  started  the  opposition  to  child 
labor,  have  accomplished  much  in  the  fight. 

Through  their  incessant  agitation  capitalists 
102 


9In 


and  mill-owners  have,  without  doubt,  been 
brought  to  a  sense  of  making  complete  the  set 
tlements — complete  in  sanitation,  in  school- 
houses,  in  churches,  and  in  everything  tend 
ing  to  further  the  health,  education  and  con 
tentment  of  those  whom  they  employ.  The 
houses  are  comfortable  cottages.  The  class 
of  people  are  the  tenant  class,  and  would  if 
not  employed  in  mills  be  employed  on  farms, 
or  cultivating  farms  of  their  own.  The 
houses  in  the  mill  communities  are  palaces 
compared  with  the  hovels  that  were  their 
homes  before.  Those  who  have  been  for 
tunate  enough  to  till  the  land  for  themselves 
will  tell  you  they  make  more  money  in  the 
mills  and  prefer  the  work  to  farming.  But 
the  great  point  made  by  the  people  who 
fight  against  child  labor  is  the  pallor  and 
sickly  condition  of  a  child  who  is  shut  up  in 
stuffy  rooms  filled  with  machinery  and  de 
prived  of  God's  pure  air  and  the  outdoor 

life  so  necessary  to   childhood.     For  years 
103 


these   fights  against   child   labor  have  been 
going  on. 

As  a  start  in  my  quest  for  knowledge  on 
the  subject  I  went  to  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  to  hear  the  arguments  for  and 
against  child  labor.  A  man  arose  and  with 
vehement  gesture  and  extravagant  words 
confirmed  all  my  theories.  He  pictured 
drunken  fathers  and  dissolute  mothers  al 
lowing  tender  little  children  to  work  and 
support  them.  He  told  of  them  dying  of 
consumption,  their  faces  the  faces  of  old  men 
and  old  women,  instead  of  the  bright  and 
happy  countenances  of  childhood.  He 
fairly  pelted  the  air  with  facts  against  child 
labor.  It  seemed  a  bit  exaggerated,  though 
it  agreed  so  well  with  the  ideas  I  had  my 
self,  for  the  bill  for  which  he  argued  defined 
a  child  as  of  twelve  years  or  under.  His  argu 
ments  were  so  strong  they  should  have  made 

fourteen  or  sixteen  the  age  when  childhood  is 
104 


3ln 


left  behind.  Still,  I  knew  positively  that 
child  labor  was  a  heinous  crime.  Then 
another  man  took  the  floor  and  gave  some 
facts  that  placed  the  matter  in  a  different 
light.  He  showed  that  the  provision  of  a 
means  by  which  a  little  child  could  earn 
some  money  was  a  token  of  Divine  Provi 
dence.  Then  my  theories  began  to  wobble. 
Someone  else  in  persuasive  manner  and 
voice  added  to  the  symposium  with  what 
bad  taste  it  was  to  interfere  with  domestic 
relations  and  family  affairs,  and  my  princi 
ples,  so  far  as  child  labor  went,  were  as  mud 
dled  as  my  knowledge,  and  I  decided  that 
legislation,  with  all  due  respect  to  orators, 
might  be  a  necessary  thing,  but  personal 
trips  through  mills  and  milling  settlements 
were  the  only  way  to  gain  genuine  informa 
tion.  After  visiting  six  mills  I  still  don't 
know  whether  I  am  for  or  against  child  labor. 
Theoretically,  it  is  wrong.  Practically,  the 
children  are  being  taken  care  of  kindly. 
105 


The  proportion  of  children  employed  is 
small.  I  think  the  average  is  four  children 
to  one  hundred  grown  people.  The  passing 
of  the  Child  Labor  Bill  in  South  Carolina 
will  not  affect  seriously  the  work  of  children. 
The  bill  says  children  under  the  age  of 
twelve  must  not  be  employed.  It  is 
impossible  to  find  a  child  now  who  will 
say  he,  or  she,  is  not  twelve  !  Some 
of  them  are  very  tiny,  very  babyish  for 
twelve  years  old,  but  who  shall  dispute  the 
fact  of  age  when  the  child  is  assisted  in  the 
statement  by  its  father  and  mother  and  older 
brothers  and  sisters  ?  Who  wants  to  dis 
pute  the  fact  when  the  little  tots  are  support 
ing  a  sick  father  who  must  have  the  con 
stant  attention  of  the  mother — parents  who 
are  sustained  entirely  by  the  money  these 
children  earn  ?  It  is  true  that  some  of  them 
look  sickly,  but  more  of  them  are  round- 
cheeked  and  not  pale,  though  not  so  rosy  as 

one  expects  children  to  be.     They   are  not, 
106 


however,  of  the  station  in  life  that  shows  the 
care  and  attention  conducive  to  clear  com 
plexions.  One  child  was  hideous  in  his  pal 
lor  and  of  narrow,  caved-in  chest.  His  face 
was  prematurely  old,  and  he  leaned  against  a 
truck  as  he  waited  for  the  half-hour  or  the 
hour  to  pass  by  when  he  would  have  some 
duty  to  perform.  He  was  the  only  really 
sick  child  I  saw  in  the  largest  mill  in  the 
world — the  Olympia  Mill.  This  mill  in 
the  spinning-room  has  104,000  spindles.  It 
takes  only  400  people  to  care  for  them. 
The  work  is  very  light,  and  the  children  find 
their  labor  here  mostly  in  "  doffing."  Light 
wooden  spools  are  filled  with  thread,  fibre  or 
yarn.  When  they  are  filled  they  must  be 
taken  off,  another  spool  put  on,  and  the 
filled  spools  taken  in  a  truck  to  the  next  ma 
chine.  The  work  is  done  by  all  the  most 
modern  and  most  complete  machinery,  but 
the  machine  must  be  assisted  at  certain  times 

by  human  hands.     Child  hands  are  just  as 
107 


proficient  as  adult  hands.  While  the  spool 
is  filling  again — about  two  hours  if  the  thread 
is  very  fine — less  time  with  coarse  threads 
— the  child  has  nothing  to  do,  unless  he 
dusts  or  rolls  the  trucks  about. 

The  work  is  not  hard  work,  but  the  air  is 
filled  everywhere  in  the  mills  with  a  fine  lint 
that  is  breathed  constantly,  and  in  addition 
there  is  the  odor  of  machine  oil,  that  certain 
ly  is  not  God's  pure  air.  It  is  claimed,  how 
ever,  by  the  mill-owners  that  the  grown 
people  succumb  to  it  much  more  quickly  than 
children.  Tuberculosis  is  a  common  malady 
among  mill  people.  You  cannot,  in  visiting 
the  mills,  refrain  from  coughing  constantly, 
as  the  lint  lodges  in  your  nostrils  and  throat. 
And  surely  you  never  appreciate  pure  air 
more  than  when  getting  away  from  the  odor 
of  fish  oil.  One  thing  I  noticed  particularly. 
Parents  who  work  with  the  children — 

mothers  and  children  in  the  spinning-rooms 
1 08 


gin  tyt 


— were  much  mere  self-respecting  in  appear 
ance  than  the  mothers  who  came  at  the  noon 
hour  to  bring  luncheon  to  their  offspring.  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  ever  seen  a  lower 
or  more  vicious  cast  of  countenance  than 
some  of  these  women  had.  They  certainly 
were  a  definition  of  the  term,  "  po'  white 
trash."  Such  mothers  should  be  made  to 
do  the  work  while  the  children  go  to  school. 
Yet  I  doubt  much  if  such  specimens  of  hu 
manity  would  be  allowed  the  responsibility 
of  working  around  such  expensive  machinery. 
If  the  child  labor  brings  support  to  such 
families,  then  the  child  must  share  in  the 
comfort,  and  is  better  off  than  it  would  be 
without  the  money  it  is  earning. 

The  owners  and  managers  of  mills  do  not 
want  to  employ  children  under  the  ages  of 
twelve  and  fourteen,  and  much  prefer  the 
children  should  go  to  school.  They  do 
everything  they  can  to  make  the  school- 
log 


rooms  attractive  and  to  elevate  the  social 
atmosphere  of  the  mill  communities.  The 
children  get  interested  in  the  schools,  but 
there  is  no  law  to  rigidly  compel  attendance. 
The  clause  making  it  a  crime  punishable  by 
fine  or  imprisonment  for  parents  to  refuse  to 
send  children  to  school  was  omitted  in  the 
Compulsory  Education  Bill,  probably  because 
the  law  is  as  much  for  the  colored  as  the 
white  race,  and  the  negroes  are  crowding  the 
white  children  out  of  the  schools.  In  the 
mill  settlements,  however,  there  are  no 
negroes  to  interfere  with  education.  There 
are  seven  school-houses  at  the  mill  com 
munity  which  is  on  the  outskirts  of  Colum 
bia,  several  churches  and  a  public  library. 
It  rests  entirely  with  the  people  whether  this 
generation  and  the  following  ones  become 
educated.  Mill-owners  cannot  force  it, 
though  they  provide  for  it. 


no 


VIII 

THE    SOUTH   MUST    BE    LET  ALONE   TO  WORK   OUT 
ITS    SALVATION. 

COLUMBIA,  S.  C.,  March  10. 

I  HOPE  I  shall  not  be  considered  as  treach 
erous  to  my  North,  or  as  seceding  from  the 
Stars  and  Stripes,  when  I  say  that  the  South 
is  winning  a  victory  that  is  much  greater 
than  was  the  victory  of  the  North  in  the 
Civil  War — or  rather  in  the  "  War  of  the 
States."  (I  am  told  here  in  Columbia,  just 
after  getting  myself  in  discipline  to  say 
"  Civil  War  "  instead  of  "  Rebellion,"  to 
please  Charleston,  that  "  War  of  the  States  " 
is  the  correct  term.  Each  town  seems  to 
have  its  own  definition  of  that  disastrous 
time  in  the  J6o's.)  This  victory  of  the 

South  is  one  of  patience  and  long  waiting  for 
in 


facts  and  conditions  to  prove  themselves. 
There  is  in  the  atmosphere  here  a  dogged, 
determined,  settled  principle  about  everything 
that  seems  a  part  of  the  universe  itself. 
When  out  of  the  realm  of  politics  there  is  no 
swerving,  swaying,  dodging,  twisting  and 
turning  to  force  issues,  to  assist  personal 
ambitions — a  fighting  for  one  thing  here,  for 
something  else  there — but  a  steady,  quiet, 
even  plodding  toward  a  natural  evolution 
that  will  place  the  South  on  its  own  substan 
tial  foundation.  Whatever  the  disturbances 
in  the  old  Reconstruction  days  ;  the  days 
of  the  endeavor  to  reject  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  ;  the  days  of  Ku  Klux  Klan 
and  the  Knights  of  the  White  Camellia  ;  the 
days  of  desperation,  when,  after  defeat  in 
open  battle,  the  South  still  fought,  in  an 
other  way,  to  overturn  the  new  regime  called 
Reconstruction — there  is  now  a  cool,  intel 
ligent,  philosophical  disposition  to  wait 
for  their  time  that  is  surely  coming — to 
112 


9In 


wait    with    only   the    one  prayer,    "  Let  us 
alone  !  " 

This  fervid  plea  of  the  South  to  be  per 
mitted,  in  its  own  way,  to  work  out  its  sev 
eral  problems — the  negro  question,  the  child 
labor  complication  and  the  "  walking  arsen 
al"  matter — is  the  only  thing  that  savors 
of  antagonism.  In  their  pleading  the  South 
ern  people  say  :  "  Even  slavery,  in  those 
old  days,  would  soon  have  been  abolished 
by  us.  We  were  getting  to  it.  Then  came 
that  awful,  awful  time — those  years  with  but 
one  thought,  to  fight  for  our  own.  Ours 
then,  as  this  part  of  the  country  is  ours 
now."  Somehow  the  feeling  grows  upon  me 
that  the  South  could  not  only  better  work 
out  its  own  problems  alone  and  unaided, 
but,  with  its  whole-hearted,  undivided,  un 
swerving  devotion  to  the  betterment  of  con 
ditions,  even  the  social  problems  of  the  North 
would  not  suffer  materially  at  its  hands. 

8  113 


Just  as  we  were  loaded  with  the  Philip 
pines  and  unable  to  get  away,  so  we  had  the 
negro  question  thrust  upon  us,  with  no  way 
to  extricate  ourselves  until  now.  We  say 
negro  suffrage  is  a  failure  and  wonder  what 
the  end  will  be — with  a  sigh  !  The  South 
does  not  wonder  and  it  does  not  sigh. 
These  people  have  always  known  what  the 
end  of  the  "  political  negro "  would  be. 
Only  in  this  respect  do  they  consider  the 
negro  a  failure.  They  are  willing,  if  "  let 
alone,"  to  solve  the  problem.  They  have 
known  for  a  long  time,  while  watching 
our  floundering,  that  sooner  or  later  they 
must  come  to  the  rescue,  for  the  negro's 
sake  as  well  as  their  own.  If  "  let  alone  " 
there  would  be  one  problem  less  of  the 
South. 

Floundering  under  the  weight  of  the 
negro,  our  eyes  stare  with  wonder  at  other 
conditions  across  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line, 

and  get  close  to  the  same  conditions  on  this 
114 


3]n 


side  of  the  divide.  For  instance,  the  child 
labor  in  cotton  mills.  What  difference 
should  there  be  between  the  child  labor  of 
the  South  and  the  child  labor  of  the  North  ? 
Yet  it  is  the  child  labor  of  the  South  that  so 
excites  the  North.  The  Southerners  do  not 
retaliate  with  any  bitterness — unless  it  be  to 
hint  that  there  is  possibly  a  jealousy  on  the 
part  of  the  Northern  cotton  mill  owners 
against  this  Southern  prosperity — but  they 
feel  and  deplore  the  weariness  of  not  being 
let  alone.  They  sometimes  speak,  without 
going  into  details,  of  the  children  employed 
in  our  department  stores,  and  they  may,  per 
haps,  compare  the  number  of  children  thus 
employed  in  New  York  City  alone  with  the 
number  of  children  employed  in  the  whole 
State  of  South  Carolina.  They  do  not, 
however,  feel  at  all  on  the  defensive.  They 
simply  ask,  "  Why  do  the  Northern  people 
make  these  serious  objections  to  child  labor 
in  the  South  and  so  ignore  the  same  subject 


in  the  North  ?  "  They  understand  better  than 
we  can  what  a  godsend  the  factories  have 
been  to  the  poor  white  people  of  the  South 
whose  condition  before  was  most  pitiful. 
Before  the  mills  were  built  these  people  were 
a  class  that  even  the  negroes  looked  upon 
with  contempt,  on  the  ground,  probably, 
that  the  combination  of  white  blood  and 
poverty  was  incongruous. 


An  erroneous  impression  exists  in  the 
North  that  New  England  capital  has  pushed 
along  the  cotton  industries  of  the  South. 
There  are  over  2,750,000  spindles  in  the 
State  of  South  Carolina,  as  estimated  by  Mr. 
August  Kohn,  a  writer  for  the  News  and 
Courier,  of  Charleston,  and  this  represents 
the  capital  of  the  State,  with  perhaps  20  per 
cent,  of  it  belonging  to  capitalists  and  cotton 
brokers  of  New  York  City.  Much  indig 
nation  is  felt  here  over  the  sensations  spread 
116 


9In 


by  "  alien  writers  "  who  refer  to  "  the  white 
slavery  of  the  South  "  and  the  mills  being 
owned  by  cc  New  England  capital,  and  the 
millions  of  dollars  being  invested  with  the 
tacit  understanding  that  legislation  and  Gov 
ernors  will  not  inspect  nor  interfere  with 
child  labor."  These  statements  are  abso 
lutely  untrue,  and  resentment  is  just.  The 
industry  having  been  a  growing  one,  large 
mills  replacing  small  ones,  new  machinery 
crowding  out  the  old,  and  steadily  continu 
ous  success  showing  plainly  on  the  surface 
that  the  "  stricken  South  "  is  stricken  no 
longer,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Southern  en 
terprise  claims  and  wants  all  the  credit  it 
deserves.  In  some  instances  stock  has  been 
taken  in  payment  for  machinery  sent  from 
New  England,  but  this  stock  is  soon  turned 
into  cash.  Often  it  is  sold  to  operatives 
who  have  saved  for  the  purpose  of  becoming 
owners.  There  is  unity  of  purpose  be 
tween  owners  and  operatives — one's  interest 
117 


blending  with  the  other's  ;  one's  sympathy 
given  to  the  other — which  makes  trade 
unions  and  labor  difficulties  very  remote. 
This  earnestness  of  purpose  on  the  part  of 
the  operatives  is  not  always  with  a  view  to 
saving  and  becoming  owners  of  stock ;  it  is 
often — more  often  than  otherwise — -just  with 
the  object  of  getting  money  to  spend,  and 
not  money  to  save.  When  you  consider 
the  dire  poverty  from  which  this  class  of 
people  came — people  that  grubbed  along 
getting  a  half  living  out  of  the  ground,  but 
never  the  sight  of  a  silver  coin — it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  that  it  is  a  case  of 
money  coming  "easy,"  and  that  improvi 
dence  naturally  follows.  Sure  it  is  that  mill 
hands  are  notably  extravagant. 

The  milling  settlements  have  their  own 

"  stores,"  their  own  schoolhouses,  churches, 

libraries   and  lyceums.      There   is   no    law 

compelling  men,  women  or  children  to  take 

118 


advantage  of  these  privileges,  but  the  oppor 
tunities  are  there,  and  they  are,  in  every  way, 
beyond  anything  the  people  could  know 
outside  of  the  milling  communities.  The 
owners  of  mills  and  the  managers  do  not 
prefer  child  labor — they  much  prefer  to  see 
the  fine  schoolhouses  utilized  to  their  fullest 
extent  and  the  work  of  the  mills  done  by 
older  hands.  If  children  are  not  forced  into 
the  schoolhouses,  or  have  not  the  personal 
ambition  to  learn,  they  are  much  better  off 
in  the  mills.  No  "equality"  negroes  are 
about  to  interfere  with  the  inclination  to 
attend  school,  but  with  parents  having  had 
no  early  advantages  themselves  and  less 
chance  for  earning  money,  and  the  mills  now 
giving  opportunity  for  each  member  of  the 
family  to  add  to  their  latent  "  wealth,"  it  is 
natural  that  the  mill-owners  give  out  more 
encouragement  for  filled  schoolhouses  than 
they  receive ;  that  money  should  appear  of 
more  value  than  reading  and  writing;  and 
119 


that  things  to  eat   and  things  to  wear  take 
on  a  much  higher  value  than  mental  culture. 

With  this  long-established  ignorance  of 
the  poor  white  people,  and  the  wide  divid 
ing  line  between  this  class  and  the  cultivated 
people  of  the  South,  there  is  not  the  feeling 
of  degradation  in  being  a  mill  hand  that 
there  is  in  some  places  in  the  North.  Con 
sequently  there  is  not  the  incentive  to  edu 
cation  or  whatever  will  lift  out  of  the  mill 
life.  Fathers  and  mothers  have  spent  their 
lives  at  it,  and  find  no  need  of  anything  else, 
and  children  follow  on,  naturally,  without 
being  taught  there  are  better  vocations. 
The  sickly,  pallid  faces  are  no  worse  in  the 
mills  than  when  these  families  come  in  from 
the  "  sand  hills  "  or  farms.  They  are  not 
the  class  of  people  that  make  a  study  of  san 
itation  or  the  advantages  of  pure  air  and 
pure  food.  In  the  milling  towns  these 

things    are    considered ;    and,    though     the 
120 


gin 


fumes  of  the  mill  are  of  oil,  and  the  air  is 
rilled  with  fine  lint,  and  the  constant  rumble, 
whir  and  racket  of  the  machinery  knock  out 
the  nervous  system,  there  is  some  compen 
sation  in  the  house  comforts  that  are  fur 
nished  by  the  mill  companies  and  in  the 
cash  with  which  they  can  purchase  comforts 
for  themselves. 

I  may  be  giving  a  wrong  impression  by 
speaking  generally  of  the  people  who  work 
in  the  mills.  There  are  very  many  excep 
tions  to  this  class  coming  from  the  lowest 
levels  of  poverty  and  ignorance.  As  I  said, 
many  operatives  become  stockholders,  and 
many,  through  frugal  habits,  save  enough  to 
step  out  of  the  monotonous  work  and,  with 
the  many  opportunities  the  South  affords, 
become  men  of  wealth  and  position. 

The  most  demoralizing  thing  about  it  all, 

as  it  appeared  to  me  in  personal  trips  through 
121 


the  mills,  was  the  love  of  dollars  and  cents 
that  could  keep  pretty  young  girls  from 
twelve  to  eighteen  years  old  at  spindles  and 
"  drawing  in  "  frames  and  looms — girls  that 
would  tell  you  with  pride  they  earned  "75 
cents  always,  and  sometimes  as  much  as 
$1.50,"  and  that  they  did  not  "have  to 
work,"  but  could  have  so  much  better  dresses, 
ribbons  and  many  little  things  that  they 
wanted.  The  work  itself  seems  monotonous 
enough  to  stop  the  development  of  the  brain, 
making  automatons  of  the  most  brilliant  in 
tellects.  But — what  will  you  ?  Somebody 
must  do  it.  We  must  have  cotton.  So  far 
as  children  are  concerned — the  children  of 
the  cotton  mills — education  is  not  necessary 
to  make  them  experts.  If  the  profession  is 
one  that  is  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation  it  would  seem  as  if  the  lack  of 
education  were  preferable. 


122 


9|n 


IX 

SHE     DEPRECATES     ALL     DISCUSSION     OF     THE 
RACE    PROBLEM. 

July  2. 

SURELY  the  negro  is  coming  to  the  front  in 
attention,  if  he  is  not  in  solving  his  own 
problem.  And  surely,  too,  the  people  of 
the  North — in  the  lynching  of  the  colored 
brute  in  Delaware — can  no  longer  say  that 
it  is  the  prejudice  and  hatred  of  the  South 
that  interfere  with  the  progress  of  the  poor 
negro!  No  lynching  of  a  colored  criminal 
in  the  South  ever  developed  such  an  in 
tense  hatred  of  the  race.  In  the  South  the 
stake  is  considered  just  punishment  and  the 
needed  object-lesson  to  keep  in  subjection 
this  savage  class,  that  realizes  and  recognizes 
123 


no  law.  Their  lesson  must  be  that  of  fear, 
otherwise  an  armed  force  would  be  necessary 
to  enforce  law,  which  would  make  no  impres 
sion  until  the  race  showed  danger  of  exter 
mination,  as  in  the  case  of  the  American 
Indians.  When  the  Indians  saw  their  num 
bers  rapidly  decreasing,  and,  in  their  ad 
vancing  knowledge  of  civilization,  saw  there 
were  thousands  of  white  people  to  hundreds 
of  red  people,  they  grew  wary.  They  no 
longer  cared  to  go  on  the  warpath  and  their 
leaders  became  "  friendly  ";  but  the  hatred  of 
the  dark  skin  against  the  white  skin  was  not 
changed,  and  cannot  be  while  two  natures 
exist  beneath  the  two  colors.  The  Indians, 
having  race  pride  and  inborn  aristocracy — 
with  all  their  savagery,  which  is  only  primi 
tive  at  the  worst — and  characteristics  which 
do  not  permit  them  to  become  servile,  have 
been  tucked  away  on  reservations.  The 
negro,  being  without  race  pride,  without 

pride  of  family,  without  ambition  other  than 
124 


as  an  imitator  of  the  white  people,  has  been 
allowed  to  roam,  allowed  his  liberty,  allowed 
his  docile  existence.  His  only  force  of  char 
acter  being  the  brute  passion,  a  fine  analysis 
would  show — if  sentiment  were  obliterated 
— that  the  North,  with  the  South,  under 
stands  perfectly  well  that  the  whiplash  or 
some  horrible  spectacle  is  needed  on  oc 
casion.  The  hatred,  which  can  lie  dormant, 
but  which  is  one  of  nature's  laws,  crushes  all 
other  instincts  and  makes  the  Northerner  a 
calm,  deliberate,  smiling  torturer,  while  the 
Southerner  long  ago  learned  and  taught  us 
the  lesson  of  this  style  of  punishment  through 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  race  with  which 
he  had  to  deal.  It  was  not  hatred  with  the 
Southerner.  It  was  an  ultimate  friendship 
—a  something  that  had  to  be  done  to  make 
it  possible  to  live  in  the  South. 

Lack    of  reason    exists    in    the    so-called 

educated    negro,    as    well    as    in    the    black 
125 


savages,  who  commit  these  outrages.  A 
colored  pastor  who,  in  his  Sunday  sermon, 
advised  the  colored  people  to  go  armed 
and  protect  themselves  against  the  white 
people,  would,  if  he  were  a  white  man  and 
advising  a  white  congregation,  be  cautious 
and  recognize  the  delicate  ground  on  which 
he  stood.  If  he  were  an  intelligent,  reason 
ing  colored  man  he  would  be  more  cautious, 
because  he  would  recognize  the  lack  of  rea 
soning  power  in  the  class  to  whom  he  was 
talking  and  would  understand  that  going 
armed  would  mean  a  racial  war  and  extermi 
nation  for  his  race.  Being  either  white  or 
colored,  he  should  be  arrested  for  preaching 
treason.  Being  colored,  he  will  probably  go 
on  in  his  doctrines  without  molestation — his 
hearers  being  of  a  docile  race  that  cannot, 
without  leadership,  become  a  formidable  foe. 
Leadership  could  not  spring  from  the  white 
race,  and  would  not  from  the  colored  race. 

The  colored  educator,  with   enough  mental 
126 


3jn 


calibre  to  make  him  an  intelligent  leader, 
does  not  want  to  fight  the  white  people  in 
our  country.  He  wants  to  be  one  of  them. 
It  is  his  only  goal  of  ambition. 

It  is  most  unfortunate  that  the  negro  ques 
tion  should  be  agitated.  It  is  a  subject  that 
should  be  tabooed,  just  as  are  the  personal 
failings  of  an  individual  who  stands  with  out 
stretched  appealing  hands.  It  is  a  subject 
that  the  South  never  refers  to  save  when 
some  political  appointment  or  political  party 
lifts  a  colored  man  out  of  the  groove  that  he 
makes  for  himself.  If  the  Southerner  ob 
jects — not  from  hatred,  but  because  of  his 
knowledge  of  negro  unfitness — then  a  howl 
goes  up  and  the  whole  country  begins  a  dis 
cussion.  In  the  discussing  the  negro  be 
comes  elated,  and  in  his  lack  of  reason  and 
logic  sees  himself  as  good  as  any  white  man 
in  a  white  man's  country,  sees  himself  hav 
ing  honors  heaped  upon  him,  sees  himself  a 
127 


ruler  where  he  has  been  a  slave,  sees  himself 
anything  and  everything  that  his  ambition 
craves. 

The  colored  man,  T.  Thomas  Fortune, 
Special  Commissioner,  sent  by  the  Govern 
ment  last  November  to  the  Hawaiian  and 
Philippine  Islands,  is  a  sample  of  what  a 
little  education  can  do.  At  an  entertain 
ment  tendered  him  by  a  club  composed  of 
his  own  people,  he  expressed  himself  as  see 
ing  a  solving  of  the  race  problem  in  this 
country,  and  a  reassuring  of  the  Filipinos 
only  in  a  colored  Governor  for  the  Philip 
pine  Islands  !  He  said  :  "  Let  them  ap 
point  some  such  able  man  as  Booker  T. 
Washington  to  be  Governor  of  the  Philip 
pine  Islands,  with  sympathetic  fellow-com 
missioners."  He  said  wisely  that  the  climate 
would  suit  the  negroes  and  that  they  would 
affiliate  with  the  Filipinos.  T.  Thomas 
Fortune,  in  his  little  knowledge,  either 
128 


ignored,  or  did  not  see,  that  there  are  Fili 
pinos  and  Filipinos.  The  only  affiliation 
that  could  exist  between  the  two  races  would 
be  in  the  parts  of  the  islands  where  there  is 
no  mixed  blood.  The  Filipino  race  is  saved 
by  this  mixture — be  it  Chinese,  Japanese, 
Spanish  or  American.  The  Malays  of  the 
different  tribes  take  to  the  negroes  with 
affection.  The  negroes  take  to  them  because 
it  gives  them  power — they  are  looked  up  to 
for  the  first  time  in  their  lives.  They  desert 
from  our  Army  and  become  leaders  of  the 
insurrectionists  or,  to  be  politically  proper, 
the  "  ladrones." 

•         •••••• 

This  man,  T.  Thomas  Fortune,  according 
to  the  reports  from  Manila — as  chronicled 
in  the  Manila  Sun — had  a  serious  time  try 
ing  to  establish  his  importance  as  a  Special 
Commissioner  sent  by  our  Government.  It 
seems  that  T.  T.  Fortune  with  two  of  his 

friends,    in     conversation    and     discussion, 
129 


blocked  the  way  on  Calle  Rosario.  The 
police  hearing  the  discussion  told  the  party 
to  move  on.  The  "  Special  Commissioner," 
a  negro  lawyer  named  Garner,  the  man  For 
tune  and  his  secretary,  "  Captain "  Wood, 
another  colored  man,  were  insulted  and  re 
fused*  In  the  altercation  an  arrest  was  made, 
which  resulted  finally  in  all  of  them  being 
placed  in  custody.  At  the  station  T.  T. 
Fortune,  according  to  the  Manila  newspaper 
talked  in  a  "  high  and  mighty  manner,"  told 
the  police  who  he  was,  and  that  he  would 
prefer  charges.  The  captain  of  the  precinct 
said  if  Fortune  had  not  been  occupying  an 
official  position  he  would  probably  have  suf 
fered  severely  for  the  insulting  language  he 
used  at  the  station.  He  intimated  also  that 
Fortune  was  under  some  kind  of  an  influence 
which  in  his  experience  seemed  like  a  cc  min 
gling  of  intoxicating  liquor  and  evil  temper." 
But  Mr.  Fortune  claimed  that  he  and  his 
party  were  perfectly  sober,  correct  and  proper. 
130 


3!n 


Then  Fortune  preferred  his  charges  against 
the  patrolmen,  and  the  "  Special  Commission 
ers"  sent  to  investigate  conditions  in  the 
Philippines  were  taken  before  Judge  Liddell 
to  answer  charges  against  them.  Governor 
Wright  took  a  hand,  and  the  result  was  that 
all  proceedings  and  charges  were  dropped. 
It  is  noticeable,  however,  that  the  Municipal 
Board  have  not  dropped  from  their  list  the 
policeman  who  made  the  arrest  of  our  Gov 
ernments  "  Special  Commissioners." 

Lynchings  are  horrible  ;  the  need  of  them 
more  horrible.  The  crime  lies  not  so  much 
with  the  circumstances — it  is  farther  back. 
The  negroes,  educated  and  uneducated,  sav 
age  and  docile,  are  not  in  the  condition  to  be 
brought  into  public  notice.  In  their  half- 
learning  they  cannot  understand  the  self- 
discipline  that  makes  every  man  a  candidate 
for  liberty  and  much-talked-of  freedom. 
Until  they  can  understand  that  every  intel- 


ligent  human  being  is  his  own  prisoner,  they 
should  be  kept  under  the  subjection  of  some 
one  who  does  understand.  As  the  negro  be 
comes  bleached  through  miscegenation  he 
does  understand  ;  but  he  has  left  his  race  be 
hind  as  "  niggers."  He  will  have  no  more 
to  do  with  them. 

In  the  parts  of  the  South  where  work  on 
plantations  goes  on  smoothly  and  where 
trouble  is  never  heard  of,  there  are  three 
punishments  meted  out  to  the  offending 
negro — the  lash,  a  fine  and  deporting.  The 
negro  who  breaks  the  law  can  have  his  choice. 
He  prefers  either  the  lash  or  fine  to  being 
sent  away.  There  are  many  things  to  learn 
of  discipline  in  the  South,  but  there  are  many 
things  it  were  better  not  to  discuss.  To  dis 
cuss  them  or  give  them  out  to  a  reading 
public  creates  excitement  and  a  hue  and 
cry  from  reformers,  who  feed  on  facts  they 
have  not  the  broadness  of  intellect  nor  incli 
nation  to  understand.  It  would  take  away 
132 


their  vocation  to  recognize  as  necessary  some 
existing  conditions.  These  reformers  must 
live,  I  suppose,  and  if  their  sympathies  should 
happen  to  strike  in  the  right  place,  it  would 
knock  out  the  foundation  of  their  business. 


END 


133 


PERKINS,  THE  FAKEER 

An  Amusing  Travesty  on  Reincarnation 

BY 

EDWARD   S.  VAN  ZILE 

A  Yankee,  after  long  residence  in  the  East,  has 
become  an  adept  in  magical  arts,  and  on  his 
return  to  America  amuses  himself  by  occult 
pranks  that  involve  innocent  persons  in  appalling 
dilemmas.  The  author's  humor  is  distinctive  and 
unfailing;  the  plot  is  absorbing.  The  book  does 
not  contain  a  dull  line  or  a  sad  one. 

New  York  Sun, — "  The  reader  may  be  assured  that  he  will  be 
amused  and  entertained." 

New  York  American.—'''-  More  than  witty  and  more  than  weird, 
while  it  combines  both  these  qualities  and  many  more." 

Philadelphia  Record. — "  Cleverly  told,  and  the  volume  capably 
enacts  its  allotted  role  of  furnishing  light  entertainment  for  the 
reader." 

St.  Louis  Republic. — "  A  laugh  invariably  accompanies  the  read 
ing  of  nearly  every  paragraph." 

Cleveland  Recorder. — "The  story  is  a  most  original  one." 

Town  Topics.—"  I  hailed  them  with  joy  for  their  originality  and 
irresistible  drollery." 

Troy  Press.— •"  Perkins,  the  Fakeer^  uses  his  powers  in  an  alarm 
ing,  as  well  as  an  amusing,  manner." 

Omaha  World-Herald.—"  In  this  hour  of  the  wearisome  so-called 
'  historical  novel '  it  is  a  relief,  indeed,  to  come  to  know  the  fasci 
nating  Mr.  Perkins." 

Toledo  Blade.— "The  tales  are  amusing,  and  if  they  were  plays, 
would  be  billed  as  side-splitters." 

Illustrated  by  HY.  MAYER.     $1.00  net. 

THE  SMART  SET  PUBLISHING  CO. 

452  Fifth  Avenue,   New  York  City 


A  Puritan  Witch 

cA  Romantic  Lme  Story 

By    MARVIN    DANA 


This  is  a  romance  that  abounds  in  the  best  qualities  of 
the  best  fiction :  action  that  is  essential  and  vigorous,  senti 
ment  that  is  genuine  and  pure,  a  plot  that  is  new  and  stir 
ring,  a  setting  that  is  fitting  and  distinctive.  The  artistic 
conception  of  the  story  happily  unites  realism  and  romance. 
The  reader's  interest  is  aroused  in  the  first  chapter ;  it  is 
increased  steadily  to  the  climax  of  a  happy  ending. 


New  Ycrk  Times  Saturday  Review  of  Books, — "A  lively,  warm-blooded,  eager 
girl." 

New  York  Herald. — "He  has  drawn  his  jealous  woman  with  considerable 
power,  and  he  has  deftly  intermingled  with  the  more  lurid  episodes  some  love  scenes 
which  have  their  lyric  charm." 

New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. — "Compelling  attention  by  the  novelty  of 
its  theme,  and  also  in  part  by  a  certain  sensuous  charm  of  its  smooth-flowing 
prose." 

Edgar  Saltus  in  New  York  American. — "Both  (Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and 
Mr.  Dana)  have  produced  that  little  shiver  which,  in  literature,  Victor  Hugo  said,  is 
the  one  thing  that  counts." 

Boston  Globe. — "  A  book  of  rare  quality  and  absorbing  interest." 

Brooklyn  Eagle. — "A  love  story  of  rare  tenderness  and  simplicity.  .  .  . 
Tells  itself  with  the  breath  of  living  emotions." 

Chicago  Tribune. — "A  simple  love  idyll.  .  .  .  Power  gives  way  to  pathos 
and  passion  melts  the  barriers  of  prudishness,  clearing  a  path  to  happiness." 

Town  Topics.—'1  First  and  last  a  love  story,  and  its  truth  belongs  to  the  present 
as  well  as  the  past." 

St.  Louis  Mirror. — "  Essentially  original  and  thoroughly  readable.  ...  A 
book  that  should  prove  welcome  to  fastidious  fiction-readers." 

Pittsburg  Dispatch.—1'  A  tragedy  of  intense  interest.    .    .    .     Thrilling  told." 

The  Literary  World. — "  Although  the  sympathies  of  the  reader  are  with  the 
persecuted  heroine,  and  her  trials  and  tribulations  at  the  hands  of  the  witch-finders, 
and  although  the  method  of  her  escape  is  one  of  the  best-contrived  episodes  known 
in  fiction,  yet  the  most  absorbing  bit  in  the  book  is  the  analysis  and  development  of 
the  character  of  Anna,  the  mischief-maker  of  the  tale." 


Illustrated  by  P.  XI.  Audibert.    $1.25 


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452  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 


The  Fighting  Chance 

THE   ROMANCE  OP  AN   INGENUE 
By  Gertrude  Lynch 


The  story  is  a  modern  romance  dealing  with 
prominent  public  characters  in  Washington 
political  life,  depicting  a  vivid  picture  of  a  phase 
in  the  career  of  an  honest  statesman.  The  theme 
is  treated  with  great  skill,  and  the  love  interest  in 
the  story  is  fascinating,  while  the  plot  is  abso- 
Ititely  distinctive — as  original  as  it  is  satisfying. 


New  York  Wortd.—"The  author's  personal  experience  enables 
her  to  write  luminously  of  department  life  in  Washington." 

Buffalo  Courier.— "  Will  have  its  place  among  the  best  stories 
•which  have  dealt  with  incidents  in  the  careers  of  American  states 
men." 

Army  and  Navy  Register.— "A.  story^  based  on  politics,  admirably 
adapted  for  Summer  reading.  It  is  fiction  pure  and  simple." 

Pittsburg  Dispatch.— "  A  story  of  a  pretty  and  designing  in 
genue,  who  supplies  the  love  complications.  It  is  a  study  of  diplo 
macy  in  love,  as  well  as  in  politics — subtly  analytical." 

Salt  Lake  Tribune.— "  A  story  of  the  diplomatic  world,  in  which 
the  statesman  is  faithfully  sketched.  It  is  a  pleasant  story  that  de 
serves  a  brisk  demand." 

Columbus  Press. — "  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  book  for 
a  Summer  afternoon." 

Charleston  News.— "A  valuable  contribution  to  contempora 
neous  fiction." 


Illustrated  by  Bayard  Jones.     $1.25 


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•452  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 


The  Vulgarians 

BY  EDGAR.  FAWCETT 


In  this  story  the  author  has  achieved  the  best  expression 
of  his  genius.  Parvenus  of  immense  wealth  are  here  made 
real  before  the  reader,  and  not  only  real,  but  lovable  as 
well.  The  story  is  at  once  ingenious  and  simple,  enter 
taining  and  profound.  It  is  a  most  valuable  picture  of 
American  life,  drawn  from  facts,  and  must  stand  as  an 
important  contribution  to  literature. 

New  York  Times  Saturday  Review  of  Books.—"  It  is  a  bright, 
entertaining  story." 

New  York  Sun.—"  In  New  York  they  (the  vulgarians)  fared  better, 
and  the  reader  may  be  interested  in  observing  how  its  civilizing 
influence  transformed  them,  and  how,  with  the  assistance  of  a  charm 
ing  woman,  they  were  steered  clear  of  many  pitfalls." 

Washington  Post.—"  Tells  of  a  family  from  the  West  who  already 
had  money  enough  to  make  them  comfortably  happy,  and  when 
unexpected,  fortune  dropped  down  upon  them,  were  awed  with  their 
own  importance  and  felt,  as  all  newly  rich,  that  they  must  neces 
sarily  make  a  splurge.  The  book  relates  a  story  very  common  in 
this  country,  and  is  entertaining." 

Pittsburg  Dispatch.— "~RG  has  painted  for  us,  too,  his  ideal  of  a 
social  heroine  (a  New  York  woman,  of  course)  who  is  not  a  vulgarian 
of  either  the  Western  or  the  Eastern  type." 

Grand  Rapids  Herald.—"  Young  parvenus,  who,  like  Lochinvar. 
4  came  out  of  the  West,'  are  those  of  whom  Mr.  Fawcett  writes,  and 
his  sympathetic  touch  is  unfailing;  yet  there  is  an  underlying  cur 
rent  of  humor  that  is  delightful." 

Salt  Lake  Tribune.—"  The  reader  will  not  lose  interest  from  the 
first  page  to  the  last ;  it  will  serve  admirably  to  pass  away  a  Summer 
afternoon." 

Book  and  Magazine  News.—"  A  characteristic  story  of  Summer 
life.  The  plot  is  full  of  excitement." 

Charleston  News.—"  Edgar  Fawcett  has  produced  many  novels 
which  have  been  perfect  pictures  of  certain  phases  of  life,  but  in 
'The  Vulgarians,'  his  latest  story,  his  art  becomes  almost  photo 
graphic."  

Illustrated  by  Archie  Gunn,  $1.OO 


THE  SMART  SET  PUBLISHING  CO. 

452  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 


TANIS, 

The  Sang-Digger. 

By  AMELffi  RIVES. 

This  book  is  the  last  produced,  and  the  best  of 
all  written  by  this  brilliant  American  authoress* 


Comments  of  the  Press  on  "  Tanis,  the  Sang-Digger .' 


Ame'lie  Rives  has  written  another 
novel  of  the  "  Quick  or  the  Dead  " 
order,  to  whicn  she  has  given  the 
name  of  "Tanis,  the  Sang-Digger." 
That  was  a  study  of  lust  working 
through  the  educated  and  refined; 
this  a  study  of  lust  working 
through  the  low-born,  half-savage 
diggers  of  ginseng-root  in  the  Vir 
ginia  mountains.  The  heroine  is  a 
young  savage  in  love  with  and  be 
loved  by  a  young  giant  of  her  own 
class— a  mere  animal.  Both  have 
remarkable  beauty  of  face  and 
form.  Tarn's,  the  heroine,  has  all 
the  knowledge  of  love  that  the  cen 
turies  have  taught  philosophers— 
by  instinct,  perhaps  — and  her 
struggle  against  fate  forms  the  mo 
tive  for  the  story,  which  is  in  the 
author's  best  vein.  That  it  could 
not  possibly  be  true  does  not  occur 
to  the  reader.  -  World^  New  York. 


There  is  a  familiar  boldness  in 
characterization  and  coloring,  with 
the  passionate  and  imaginative 
style,  that  secures  such  strong 
interest  and  impression  in  what 
ever  the  author  writes  in  fiction. 
—Globe,  Boston,  Mass. 

As  literature,  "Tanis  "  should  be 
permitted  to  rank  with  anything 
this  author  has  yet  done,  and  even 
those  to  whom  the  subject  may  not 
strongly  appeal  can  hardly  fail  to 
be  impressed  by  the  imagery  con 
tained  in  the  writer's  despriptive 
passages  and  the  dramatic  force 
with  which  she  invests  her  charac 
ters.—  The  Standard  -  Union* 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


Price,  Cloth,  $1.50.     Paper,  50  Cents. 


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rji-pq — pfi 

LoveLetters  of  aLiar 

By  MRS*  WILLIAM  ALLEN 

IN   graceful,   ardent  phrases,  an  American  man  wooes  an 
American  girl  epistolarily.     The  letters  were  first  printed 
in  THE  SMART  SET  last  September,  and  thus  antedate  "  An 
Englishwoman's  Love  Letters,"  which   they   immeasurably 
surpass  in  style  and  interest,  being  as  crisp  and  pointed  as 
their  English  cousins  are  prolix  and  rambling. 
Lovers  can  learn  much  from  them. 

ENTHUSIASTIC    PRESS    OPINIONS 


The  Philadelphia  North  Ameri 
can — Mrs.  Allen  has  turned  out  a 
clever  piece  of  literature— a  volume 
that  will  stand  as  one  of  the  literary- 
sensations  of  the  season.  The  book 
has  been  given  a  very  pretty  bind 
ing. 

The  Army  and  Nary  Journal— 
"The  Love  Letters  of  a  Liar"  is  a 
very  bright  story,  told  in  letters,  of 
an  unfortunate  youth,  who,  sacrific 
ing  his  heart  to  his  ambition,  meets 
the  lust  reward  of  perfidy.  It  is  a 
handy  volume  which  can  be  read  at 
a  sitting  and  is  worth  reading. 

New  York  World— All  the  world  is 
talking  about "  The  Love  Letters  of 
an  Englishwoman,"  but  they  do  not 
compare  with  u  The  Love  Letters  of 
a  Liar  "  in  brilliancy,  knowledge  of 
men  andtheworld,and  their  daring. 


The  Toledo  Blade  —  "  The  Love 
Letters  of  a  Liar,"  by  Mrs.  William 
Allen,  are  amusing  and  cleverly 
written.  As  for  "The  Liar's" 
missives,  they  are  sufficiently  in 
tense  to  satisfy  any  woman  until 
this  writer  proves  himself  false  to 
his  protestations. 

The  Washington  Post  — In  Law 
rence,  Mrs.  Allen  no  doubt  gives  us  a 
fairly  accurate  picture  of  the  aver 
age  man  of  the  world— earnest  in  the 
pursuit  of  whatever  ob  j  ect  he  deem 
ed  essential  to  his  own  welfare  and 
happiness,  steadfastly  intent  on  the 
accomplishment  of  his  own  end. 

The  Atlanta  Constitution  —  The 
plot  of  the  matter,  its  form  of 
presentation  and  the  intensity  of 
thought  and  expression  stamp  the 
story  as  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind. 


Exquisitely  printed  on  thick  deckel-edge  paper  with  flex 
ible,  imitation-leather  cover. 

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Nigger  Baby 

...AND... 

Nine  Beasts 

By  ALMA  FLORENCE  PORTER 


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appreciation  of  this  dainty,  fascinating 

volume  of  animal  stories* 


The  stories  are  beautifully  illustrated  by 
Gustave  Verbeek,  and  handsomely  printed  on 
hand-made,  deckel-edge  paper,  with  cloth 
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A   NOVEL  IN   A   MAGAZINE 

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with  the  beginning  of  its  twelfth  year  of  publication. 

EACH  ISSUE  NOW  CONTAINS  A  FULL-LENGTH  NOVEL 
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The  most  successful  quarterly  magazine  ever  published,  cir 
culated  and  sold  everywhere  English  is  read,  has  been  greatly 
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magazines.  It  has 

224  FULL  MAGAZINE  PAGES 

of  text  matter — double  the  reading  matter  of  most  magazines — 
ALL  OF  THE  BEST 

Among  its  contributors  are : 

RUDYARD  KIPLING,  WM.  H.  SIVITER, 

JUSTUS  MILES  FORMAN.  CHARLES  FDC.  NIRDLINGER, 

EDWARD  S.  VAN  ZILE,  CHARLES  HENRY  MELTZER, 

MARK  LIVINGSTON,  H.  I.  HORTON, 

LENORE  POE,  THEODOSIA  GARRISON, 

LOUISE  WINTER,  STEPHEN  FISKE, 

DAVID  CHRISTIE  MURRAY.  PETER  McARTHUR, 

PERCIVAL  POLLARD,  W.  J.  LAMPTON, 

CHARLES  STOKES  WAYNE,  CAROLYN  WELLS, 

ANNE  MACGREGOR,  TOM  P.  MORGAN, 

WILLIAM  THOMAS  WHITLOCK.  J.  J.  O'CONNELL, 

JULIAN  HAWTHORNE,  CHARLES  F.  ROOPER, 

BLANCHE  CERF,  CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE, 

BRUNSWICK  EARLINGTON.  MERIBAH  REED, 

J.  H.  TWELLS,  JR.,  BYRON  P.  STEPHENSON^ 

AMELIE  RIVES,  J.  ALEXANDER  PATTEN, 

JOHN  GILLIAT,  FRANCIS  LIVINGSTONE. 

T.-C.  DE  LEON,  EDITH  CARRUTH, 

LYMAN  F.  GEORGE,  ANITA  FITCH, 

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KATE  MASTERSON,  WALTER  PULITZER. 

TOM  MASSON, 

It  makes  its  quarterly  visits  to  its  readers  with  a  veritable 
library  of  fiction,  poetry  and  wit.  A  full-length  novel  and 
from  forty  to  sixty  brilliant  short  stories,  sketches,  poems, 
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